Diameter and Elasticity Governing the Relaxation of Soft-Nanoparticle Melts

Acting as soft-nanoparticles, series of microgels are microemulsion polymerized and investigated for their dynamics in the melt state. Each series is kept at the same average number of repeating units between crosslinking points, in short, the crosslinking degree. The relaxation time increases at the 30th power of their diameters or 10th power of their molecular weights or volume and then diverges upon approaching the critical diameter. Our...