Conformation in ultrathin polymer brush coatings resolved by infrared nanoscopy

0523716 - ÚMCH 2021 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
de los Santos Pereira, Andres - Cernescu, A. - Svoboda, Jan - Sivkova, Radoslava - Romanenko, Iryna - Bashta, Bogdana - Keilmann, F. - Pop-Georgievski, Ognen
Conformation in ultrathin polymer brush coatings resolved by infrared nanoscopy.
Analytical Chemistry. Roč. 92, č. 7 (2020), s. 4716-4720. ISSN 0003-2700. E-ISSN 1520-6882
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-07313S; GA ČR(CZ) GBP205/12/G118; GA MŠMT(CZ) LQ1604
Grant - others:AV ČR(CZ) MSM200501903
Program: Program na podporu mezinárodní spolupráce začínajících výzkumných pracovníků
Research Infrastructure: CESNET II - 90042
Institutional support: RVO:61389013
Keywords : polymer brushes * infrared nanoscopy * nanoFTIR
OECD category: Physical chemistry
Impact factor: 6.986, year: 2020
Method of publishing: Open access
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b05661

Polymer brush coatings are effective in preventing blood coagulation or bacterial attachment, but their chain conformation, while vital for this effect, was never characterized in high spatial resolution. Here, we report mid-infrared spectroscopic nanoscopy studies of few-nanometer-thin poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) films which reveal marked spectral variations along the surface at a length scale smaller than 100 nm and originating only from the physical conformation of the chains. The conformation and average orientation of the polymer chains in the layer is extracted from the spectra with the aid of theoretic modeling, confirming the spontaneous formation of a crystalline phase. This result suggests spectroscopic nanoscopy as a powerful new tool to characterize polymer brush coatings.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0308486