Homo- and mixed polymer brushes prepared by surface-grafting of asymmetric non-sticky/sticky diblock copolymers and their stimuli-responsive behaviors

We synthesize a non-sticky/sticky diblock copolymer, poly[styrene-b-3-(trimethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate], to produce polymer brushes using the grafting-to technique. Uniform coatings of the polymer brushes are efficiently produced because of the multiple reactive groups offered by the sticky block, and the surface coverage and nanoscopic morphology of the brush layer are adjusted by varying the concentrations of the immersion polymer solutions and the immersion time of the substrate. The nanoscopic pattern of the polymer brushes is subsequently utilized to produce mixed polymer brushes. The resulting homo- or mixed polymer brushes change their nanoscopic morphology in response to external stimuli of temperature and solvent. The results indicate that grafting of the asymmetric non-sticky/sticky block copolymer is an efficient method for producing a surface of polymer brushes with nanoscopic chemical heterogeneity.