Fig. 1.

Interfacial morphology of soft particle systems and hypothesized interaction potentials. (A) While a crosslinked shell retains a quasi–three-dimensional character at the interface (red), the noncrosslinked polymer shell of hairy particles can spread efficiently into a two-dimensional corona (blue). (B) Interaction potentials of the two different interfacial morphologies, calculated using a simple model where the repulsive potential is assumed to be proportional to the volume of shell overlap. A linear ramp Jagla potential ($g=1$) is also shown for comparison. (C) Reaction scheme to synthesize hairy particles with controllable shell thickness. A silica core is functionalized with an iniferter molecule, from which defined poly(2-dimethylaminoethyl) methacrylate (PDMAEMA) polymer chains are grafted in a controlled radical polymerization. (D) PDMAEMA@SiO2 core–shell particle and its dimensions in bulk and at the interface.