The interactions between mesophase-forming copolymers and nanoscopic partic
les can lead to highly organized hybrid materials. The morphology of such c
omposites depends not only on the characteristics of the copolymers, but al
so on the features of the nanoparticles. To explore this vast parameter spa
ce and predict the mesophases of the hybrids, we have developed a mean fiel
d theory for mixtures of soft, flexible chains and hard spheres. Applied to
diblock-nanoparticle mixtures, the theory predicts ordered phases where pa
rticles and diblocks self-assemble into spatially periodic structures. The
method can be applied to other copolymer-particle mixtures and can be used
to design novel composite architectures.