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Terraced and Smooth Gradient Polymer Brushes via a Polymer Single‐Crystal Assisted Grafting‐To Method
Author(s) -
Mei Shan,
Li Christopher Y.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201809915
Subject(s) - polymer , materials science , grafting , polymer brush , substrate (aquarium) , wetting , chemical engineering , polymer chemistry , nanotechnology , composite material , polymerization , oceanography , engineering , geology
Gradient polymer brushes provide a spatial gradient change in molecular characteristics of the brush, and such a change can be utilized to study structure–property relationships in a combinatorial fashion. In this study, a bottom‐up method was used to synthesize gradient polymer brushes with a predesigned and precisely controlled grafting density gradient and brush pattern. A polymer single‐crystal assisted grafting‐to (PSCAGT) method was employed where end‐functionalized polymers were grown into two‐dimensional polymer single crystals. The latter were chemically coupled to a solid substrate to form well‐defined polymer brushes. To tune the grafting density, end‐dissimilar polymers were used to co‐crystallize into one single crystal. Programmed single‐crystal growth was introduced to synthesize brushes with two different gradient architectures, that is, terraced and smooth gradient with pyramid patterns. This work demonstrates that the PSCAGT method offers a unique means to tune polymer brush nanostructure.