Grafted polymer monolayers

Koutsos V, van der Vegte E W and Hadziioannou G 1999 Direct view of structural regimes of end-grafted polymer monolayers a scanning force microscopy study Macromolecules 32 1233-6... 

Structure of grafted polymer monolayers in the presence of a polymer melt... 

We will begin with the structure of unperturbed polymer monolayers in the presence of a solvent and then move on to the case of two polymer grafted surfaces in the presence of a polymeric fluid, discussing... 

Fig. 10 General scheme of a grafting to process for the end-attachment of polymer molecules to solid surfaces. The early build-up of the polymer monolayer is governed mainly by the diffusion of the molecules to the surface. However, at later stages adsorbed amount and thickness are limited due to kinetic and thermodynamic hindrances...

Fig. 11 Schematic description of a grafting from process for the in-situ generation of surface-attached functional polymer monolayers...

Figure 6.19 Schematic representation of the grafting-from technique for the preparation of terminally attached polymer monolayers by radical chain polymerization. (After Pmcker and Riihe, 1998.)...

Surface analysis techniques specifically probe the surface of a material and are capable of detecting sub-monolayer surface coverage. However, charging in polymeric systems and the chemical similarity between the graft polymer and the substrate complicate the analysis in entirely polymeric systems. 

Using the analogy that can be drawn between the system of end-grafted polymer chains and the chain part of a surfactant monolayer, Milner and Witten [41] obtained simple analytical expressions for the bending elastic quantities. For the case of a melt brush," i.e., one in which the density is forced to be uniform, they obtain... 

Electron spin resonance (ESR) has an even longer standing history in the investigation of adsorption layers than NMR methods, due to the higher sensitivity. Its disadvantage is to require a spin probe, that can disturb the local molecular environment, which is a critical issue on molecular dimensions in monolayers. ESR and NMR methods can be considered complementary sources of information, and some of the very early NMR studies of grafted polymers at interfaces were in fact conducted complementarily to ESR [10]. A review of the application of ESR techniques to polymers at solid interfaces is given by Hommel [II]. 

Ingall, M. D. K., Honeyman, C. H., Mercure, J. V., Bianconi, P. A., and Kunz, R. R. 1999. Surface functionalization and imaging using monolayers and surface-grafted polymer layers. Journal of the American Chemical Society 121 3607-13. 

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