title: Highly Elastic and Deformable Hydrogel Formed from Tetra-arm Polymers.
abstract: After decades of efforts by many researchers, we have succeeded in realizing a near-ideal polymer network. This network, the Tetra network, is made by cross-end-coupling of tetra-arm polymer modules. The mechanical energy dissipation was extremely low (tan δ ≈ 10(-4) ). The macroscopic stress-strain relationship of the Tetra network was in good agreement with that of microscopic elastic blobs. The maximum breaking strength was extremely high (≥27 MPa). These results indicate that the Tetra network is closer to an ideal polymer network than any other conventional model networks. Because the Tetra network can be treated as uniformly packed elastic blobs, it should help apply the knowledge of single polymer chains seamlessly to the design of polymer materials and help further develop the theory of rubber elasticity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan. sakai@tetrapod.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Takamasa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.forename: Yuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Akagi
authors.forename: Takuro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsunaga
authors.forename: Manami
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kurakazu
authors.forename: Ung-Il
authors.initials: UI
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Mitsuhiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shibayama