Unraveling the Polymer Chain-Adsorbed Constrained Interfacial Region on an Atomistically Thin Carbon Sheet

Confinement of graphene and its functional derivatives in synthetic and biomacromolecules has been widely demonstrated recently to manifest in several multiscale phenomena in their mixtures. However, the intricate adsorbed interfacial region formed between polymer chains and a single layer of atomistically thin carbon sheet hitherto evaded an understanding of its nature and characteristics. Here, we reveal the structure of this constrained region and estimate the thickness of the adsorbed polymer layer on a single layer of an atomistically thin graphene oxide sheet using both direct experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. We use small-angle neutron scattering on a model multicomponent mixture formed by an adsorbing polymer, graphene oxide, and solvent for revealing the structure of the constrained interfacial region. We quantify the intricate adsorbed polymer layer thickness on a single layer of atomistically thin graphene oxide sheet by Euclidean approximation of the experimentally observed self-...