Fig. 1: Nanoconfined hydrogels based on PAAm polymer entanglements within co-planar monodomain LC nanosheet scaffold.
From: Stiff and self-healing hydrogels by polymer entanglements in co-planar nanoconfinement
a, Schematic of the flow-induced orientation of nematic LC domains of nanosheets and in situ-formed entangled hydrogel. The high-AR monolayer nanosheets allow the co-planar alignment of nanosheets and the macroscopic orientation of LC domains by mild shear flow. (i) Polarized photograph of a pristine 1.5 wt% hectorite dispersion (5 mm thick). (ii) Polarized photograph of a monodomain 1.5 wt% hectorite dispersion (0.5 mm thick). The dashed line marks the contour of dispersion. A and P indicate the directions of the analyser and polarizer. Rg is the radius of gyration of PAAm. Scale bars, 5 mm. b, TEM characterization of aligned co-planar nanosheets in the nanoconfined hydrogel. Scale bars, 100 nm. c, Measurement of nanosheet separation using TEM and SAXS compared with the calculated values as a function of hectorite concentrations (CHec). The TEM data are presented as mean values ± standard deviations from 50 measurements. d,e, Tensile stress–strain curves (d) and elastic moduli (e) depending on the nanosheet separation defining the confinement. The moduli are presented as mean values ± standard deviations from five samples. The inset in e shows an enlarged view of d. The colour codes in the inset are the same as those in d.
