Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten
DS 34: Organic thin films II: Interface spectroscopy
DS 34.9: Talk
Thursday, March 29, 2012, 17:00–17:15, H 2032
Temperature-sensitive swelling behavior of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) brushes characterized by in-situ infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry — •Andreas Furchner1, Dennis Aulich1, Eva Bittrich2, Sebastian Rauch2, Petra Uhlmann2, and Karsten Hinrichs1 — 1Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften – ISAS – e. V. — 2Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e. V.
Polymer brushes are very attractive material systems for biophysics and biochemistry. In aqueous environment, their surface properties show stimuli-responsive behavior on changes in, for example, temperature, pH, or solvent. This makes polymer brushes useful functionalized surfaces for applications like controlled protein and cell adsorption.
A suitable method for studying the film properties at the solid-liquid interface is infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry (IR-SE) in combination with a special in-situ cell. This allows to investigate the structural and chemical properties of polymer brushes in situ.
An important representative for temperature-sensitive polymer brushes is poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) [PNIPAAm], which is of great technological interest owing to the phase transition at its lower critical solution temperature of 32∘C. After an ex-situ characterization using an appropriate optical layer model, the swelling behavior of PNIPAAm brushes was investigated in neutral water at different temperatures around 32∘C using in-situ IR-SE.