- Previous Article
- Next Article
- Table of Contents
Langmuir, Vol.25, No.21, 12399-12403, 2009
Packing Patterns of Silica Nanoparticles on Surfaces of Armored Polystyrene Latex Particles
Fascinating packing patterns of identical spherical and discotic objects on curved 3 surfaces occur readily in nature and, and S-layer proteins on outer cell science. Examples include C-60 fullerenes,(1,2)13-atom cuboctahedral metal clusters, membranes.(4) Numerous situations with surface-arranged objects of variable size also exist, such as the lenses on insect eyes, biomineralized shells on coccolithophorids,(5) and solid-stabilized emulsion droplets(6) and bubbles.(7) The influence of size variations on these packing patterns, however, is studied sparsely. Here we investigate the packing of nanosized silica particles on the surface of polystyrene latex particles fabricated by Pickering miniemulsion polymerization of submicrometer-sized armored monomer droplets. We are able to rationalize the experimental morphology and the nearest-neighbor distribution with the help or Monte Carlo simulations. We show that broadening of the nanoparticle size distribution has pronounced effects on the self-assembled equilibrium packing structures, with original 12-point dislocations or grain-boundary scars gradually fading out.