The 0 60 "buckyball" I a prominent member of the recently discovered family of fullerene molecules, is an unusual system with exciting properties. This contribution summarizes the present state of theoretical understanding of the equilibrium structure of carbon clusters, in particular the fullerenes, the optical properties of individual fullerene molecules, superconductivity in the alkali-inter...

A continuum-based elastic micromechanics model is developed for silica nanoparticle/polyimide composites with various nanoparticle/polyimide interfacial treatments. The model incorporates the molecular structures of the nanoparticle, polyimide, and interfacial regions, which are determined using a molecular modeling method that involves coarse-grained and reversemapping techniques. The micromec...

Dilution of contact, hard sphere-like, nanoparticle-nanoparticle interactions upon mixing plays a key role in explaining nanoparticle dispersion in athermal all-polymer nanocomposites, as illustrated for polystyrene-nanoparticle/linear-polystyrene blends as a model system.

Complex formation between a weak flexible polyelectrolyte chain and one positively charged nanoparticle in presence of explicit counterions and salt particles is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. The influence of parameters such as the nanoparticle surface charge density, salt valency, and solution property such as the pH on the chain protonation/deprotonation process and monomer adso...

Nanoparticles are generally considered excellent candidates for targeted drug delivery. However, ion leakage and cytotoxicity induced by nanoparticle permeation is a potential problem in such drug delivery schemes because of the toxic effect of many ions. In this study, we have carried out a series of coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the water penetration, ion transp...

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on a model polymer–nanoparticle composite (PNPC) consisting of spherical nanoparticles in a bead-spring polymer melt. The polymer-mediated effective interaction (potential of mean force) between nanoparticles was determined as a function of polymer molecular weight and strength of the polymer–nanoparticle interaction. For all polymer–nanopartic...

We review recent work on DNA-linked gold nanoparticle assemblies. The synthesis, properties, and phase behavior of such DNA-gold nanoparticle assemblies are described. These nanoparticle assemblies have strong optical extinction in the ultraviolet and visible light regions; hence, the technique is used to study the kinetics and phase transitions of DNA-gold nanoparticle assemblies. The melting ...

ABSTRACT A newly arising challenge in the field of nanoparticle research concerns the control and the understanding of the interparticle interactions and interparticle properties. This should allow the development of materials based on nanoparticle assemblies which represents a great opportunity to exploit nanoparticle collective properties. Although some nanoparticle networks have been reporte...