Study of Polydispersity of Grafted Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Surfaces Using Single Molecule Atomic Force Microscopy

摘要

Single molecule atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study the statistical distribution of contour lengths (polydispersity) of polymer chains grafted to a surface. A poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) monolayer was grafted on a flat silicon substrate by covalently bonding Cl-terminated PDMS to an OH-silicon surface and characterized using contact angle measurements and ellipsometry, and single molecule AFM. A model for the single chain dynamics is presented. The statistical distributions of the polymer contour lengths were found to depend on concentration of the PDMS polymer used in the grafting solutions.