Effect of polymer architecture on metal nanoclusters

Synthesis of metal nanoclusters in polymeric media has been shown to yield small clusters with a narrow size distribution. Embedding such clusters in the three-dimensional structures formed by diblock copolymers will allow the development of ordered structures with high optical and magnetic contrast between the different regions. In this paper we investigate the effect of homopolymer and diblock copolymer properties on the cluster size. We find that in homopolymer solutions, the cluster size reaches a minimum at a specific chain molecular weight (MW). In the case of diblock copolymers, the cluster size is set by the MW of the block with the stronger affinity to the metal surface.