Abstract
The elastic stiffness of two polymer nanocomposite systems is investigated. The nanoscale fillers comprise cadmium selenide (CdSe, ∼4 nm) and cadmium selenide/cadmium sulfide (CdSe/CdS, ∼13 nm) quantum dots (QDs). The QDs are embedded within an electrospun structural block copolymer, poly(styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene) (SEBS). Tensile testing shows a monotonic decrease in the tensile Young’s modulus with increasing partially phase-separated QD concentration; this is to be compared to corresponding nanocomposites reinforced with nanorod (NR) and tetrapod (TP)-SEBS nanocomposites which show a monotonic increase with particle loading. While most studies to date emphasize the increase in Young’s modulus in polymer nanocomposites at higher reinforcement loadings, few focus on the tunability of the modulus from reductions in stiffness. The present work reveals up to an ∼80% reduction in tensile Young’s modulus with the addition of 5 vol % of QDs to electrospun SEBS. In this study, we sought mechanistic insi...
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