Morphology stability of lamellar composite magnetic materials

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the copolymers and nanoparticles during elaboration of new stable composite materials. We have shown that the interactions between the mesophases that form the copolymers and nanoscopic particles can lead to highly organized hybrid materials. The morphology of such composites depends on the characteristics of both copolymers and nanoparticles. On one hand, diblock copolymers must form a strong segregation limit and have a higher mass. On the other hand, nanoparticles must show strong affinity for one of the two polymeric species of the copolymer and be as small as possible. In this case, a composite organic-inorganic material can be obtained with a periodic distribution of the particles in the polymeric matrix. This study can be applied to other copolymer-nanoparticle mixtures and used to design advanced composite architectures. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.