Chemists at ORNL are the first to build a three-dimensional chain of spherical polymer particles with unique optical and physical properties they believe will be useful for probing properties of materials. The finding, to be published in Physical Review Letters, represents a big step toward fabricating three-dimensional photonic structures from polymeric materials. This information is crucial to the development of advanced materials and processing techniques involving polymer blends at micro- and nanoscopic scales. The scientists make the polymer chains using a micro-droplet technique that results in spheres of material that retain their individual shapes yet whose surfaces actually merge.
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