title: Surface grafted polymer brushes as ideal building blocks for "smart" surfaces.
abstract: Polymer brushes are assemblies of macromolecules chemically tethered at one end to a substrate. They provide an alternative to self-assembled monolayers because of the intrinsically large size of the building blocks and the ensuing entropic contribution to the film morphology. In this article, an overview of a number of representative polymer brush systems will be presented and their potential application for surfaces with controlled wettability, smart surfaces and nanoactuators will be explored in some detail.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Wilhelm T S
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Huck
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D019277:Entropy; D004867:Equipment Design; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry; D010087:Oxides / Q000737:chemistry; D011102:Polyhydroxyethyl Methacrylate / Q000737:chemistry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate / Q000737:chemistry; D012666:Semiconductors; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D008670:Metals; D010087:Oxides; D011108:Polymers; D011102:Polyhydroxyethyl Methacrylate; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate; D012825:Silicon