Integrated colloidal deformation to advanced polymer network design through polymer-nanoparticle alternating hybrids

Current polymer network design suffers from intrinsic trade-offs, where polymer networks with high modulus often turn out to be in short of stretchability or fracture toughness. Here, we show a novel polymer network design through polymer-nanoparticle alternating hybrids that enable integrating the non-polymeric colloid deformation into polymer network design. The new class of polymer network exhibits colloidal yielding at small deformation before conformational change at higher elongation ratios, enabling simultaneous achievement of high Young's modulus of E≈10−50MPa, high yield strength of σY∼3−5MPa, large stretchability of λ∼7−10, and high fracture energy density of Γ∼30MJ/m3. These results demonstrate a successful strategy to decouple the molecular mechanics for yield from that for stretchability or toughness, leading to new polymer networks design.