Surface Fluctuations of Polymer Brushes Swollen in Good Solvent Vapor

Journal Article · Tue Oct 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Macromolecules

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01081· OSTI ID:1393188

Sun, Liang; Akgun, Bulent; Narayanan, Suresh; Jiang, Zhang; Foster, Mark D.

Swollen polymer brushes are found in many systems where the brush is intended to mediate interactions with the surroundings. The surface height fluctuations of planar polystyrene brushes (0.04 – 0.63 chains/nm2) highly swollen in toluene vapor are so strongly slowed by the tethering of the chains that they are unobservable in the current experimental window of length and time. This is the case despite the fact that the segmental dynamics of the brush chains should be very fast due to the substantial plasticization by the solvent. With respect to thermally stimulated fluctuations, the surfaces of these swollen brushes are solid-like on time scales and length scales pertinent to many practical applications.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1393188
• Journal Information: Macromolecules, Vol. 49, Issue 19; ISSN 0024-9297
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English