Effects of dispersion and orientation of nanorods on electrical networks of block copolymer nanocomposites

Abstract

In this article, the effects of nanorod–polymer interaction, aspect ratio of nanorods, block stiffness, and external tensile force on the microstructure and electrical properties of diblock copolymer nanocomposites have been investigated using molecular dynamics simulation. It is shown that, under suitable interactions of block-block and nanorod-block, a continuous localization of anisotropic nanorods in a continuous block with a slight uniaxial orientation can dramatically reduce the percolation threshold. Such effect is reinforced in the systems with high aspect ratio nanorods, but can be suppressed as block stiffness increases. Meanwhile, the external tensile strain breaks the continuity of the three-dimensional network but induces strong orientation along with the stretching direction, leading to a decrease of homogeneous probability and an increase of directional probability.