Tunable superhydrophobic and optical properties of colloidal films coated with block copolymer micelles/micelle multilayers

The synthesis of charged block copolymer micelles (BCM) multilayers coated colloidal silica particle films with both superhydrophobic and optically tunable properties has been demonstrated. The BCM-multilayers were assembled on colloidal silica surfaces through electrostatic and hydrogen-bonding interactions between complementary BCMs, cationic polystyrene-b-poly(4- vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) and anionic polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PS-b-PAA). It was observed that the nanostructured surface morphology of BCM multilayers on colloidal silica particles could be controlled by varying the charge density of hydrophilic BCM coronas or the molecular weight of the hydrophobic core and hydrophilic corona blocks. This provided the ability to control the degree of hydrophobicity of the film. It was also observed that the incorporation of hydrophobic CdSe@ZnS nanoparticles and an organic dye into PS cores of BCMs led to the combination of multicolor emission with superhydrophobicity.