A Dual Functional Layer to Synthesize Nanopatterned Polymer Brushes

초록

Polymer brushes are comprised of polymer chains tethered to the substrate via a terminal group, and are used in a diverse range of applications which require permanent surface modification. Polymer brushes are typically synthesized by either “grafting-to” or “grafting-from” methods, for example, thermally promoted grafting of hydroxyl terminated polymer onto a surface or surface-initiated polymerization to grow polymer chains from a surface. Herein, we describe a highly versatile “grafting-from” approach to grow polymer brushes from a range of substrates with high grafting density by using a single component random copolymer, which contains crosslinkable units to form a stable film and initiator units for surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). The chemistry of the random copolymer was further modified to implement a bottom-up approach to fabricate nanopatterned polymer brushes. By assembling a block copolymer on top of the coating, nanopatterned brushes were grown after selective removal of one domain from block copolymer template. The ease of synthesis, chemical tunability, homogeneous surface, stability and applicability to a wide range of substrates makes this a versatile approach to create functionalized interfaces.