Fig. 5
Polymer-tQD strain transfer efficiency. a Schematic of tQD-polymer interfacial strain transfer. a, b Lower strain transfer efficiency from relatively low Young’s modulus polymers to the tQDs, while c and d depict higher strain transfer efficiency from relatively high Young’s modulus (higher stiffness depicted as analogous to a braid) polymers to tQDs. e Red circles and blue Xs indicate experimental values. Blue Xs represent systems with varied ligand-tQD surface chemistry. Polymer-tQD strain transfer efficiency as a function of inverse Young’s modulus of the polymer material. The plot shows lines that indicate our theoretical Mori-Tanaka model predictions; the yellow line represents the theoretical model with a polymer Poisson’s ratio of 0.3, while the purple line represents the theoretical model with a polymer Poisson’s ratio of 0.5. Error bars represent SEM and each mean is the average of 10–15 measurements
