Polymer brushes: Fabrication of Patterned Polymer Brushes on Chemically Active Surfaces by in situ Hydrogen‐Bond‐Mediated Attachment of an Initiator (Small 14/2010)

The cover picture shows a 3D AFM topographic image of PNIPAAM brushes micropatterned on a COOH-functionalized, polyacrylic acid (PAA) polymer brush substrate. In this novel patterning approach, the brush substrate is first patterned with an atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator silane, which attaches by hydrogen bond formation to the COOH species at the top of the PAA brush substrate; the resulting pattern is then amplified by ATRP. Notably this approach does not rely on the chain-terminal, “living” initiator of the substrate brush, which can suffer from low re-initiation efficiency, and thus provides an exciting method for synthesizing long graft or block copolymer brushes on polymeric substrates. The relative heights of the substrate polymer brush and the patterned block/graft polymer brushes can be tailored by controlling the ATRP reaction conditions. For more information, please read the Communication “Fabrication of Patterned Polymer Brushes on Chemically Active Surfaces by in situ Hydrogen-Bond-Mediated Attachment of an Initiator” by S. Zauscher and co-workers, beginning on page 1504.