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Abstract Durable and conductive interfaces that enable chronic and high‐resolution recording of neural activity are essential for understanding and treating neurodegenerative disorders. These chronic implants require long‐term stability and small contact areas. Consequently, they are often coated with a blend of conductive polymers and are crosslinked to enhance durability despite the potentially deleterious effect of crosslinking on the mechanical and electrical properties. Here the grafting of the poly(3,4 ethylenedioxythiophene) scaffold, poly(styrenesulfonate)‐b‐poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate block copolymer brush to gold, in a controlled and tunable manner, by surface‐initiated atom‐transfer radical polymerization (SI‐ATRP) is described. This “block‐brush” provides high volumetric capacitance (120 F cm─3), strong adhesion to the metal (4 h ultrasonication), improved surface hydrophilicity, and stability against 10 000 charge–discharge voltage sweeps on a multiarray neural electrode. In addition, the block‐brush film showed 33% improved stability against current pulsing. This approach can open numerous avenues for exploring specialized polymer brushes for bioelectronics research and application.
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Fabrication of 2D Block Copolymer Brushes via a Polymer‐Single‐Crystal‐Assisted‐Grafting‐to Method
Abstract Block copolymer brushes are of great interest due to their rich phase behavior and value‐added properties compared to homopolymer brushes. Traditional synthesis involves grafting‐to and grafting‐from methods. In this work, a recently developed “polymer‐single‐crystal‐assisted‐grafting‐to” method is applied for the preparation of block copolymer brushes on flat glass surfaces. Triblock copolymer poly(ethylene oxide)‐b‐poly(l‐lactide)‐b‐poly(3‐(triethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate) (PEO‐b‐PLLA‐b‐PTESPMA) is synthesized with PLLA as the brush morphology‐directing component and PTESPMA as the anchoring block. PEO‐b‐PLLA block copolymer brushes are obtained by chemical grafting of the triblock copolymer single crystals onto a glass surface. The tethering point and overall brush pattern are determined by the single crystal morphology. The grafting density is calculated to be ≈0.36 nm−2from the atomic force microscopy results and is consistent with the theoretic calculation based on the PLLA crystalline lattice. This work provides a new strategy to synthesize well‐defined block copolymer brushes.
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- PAR ID:
- 10377988
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Macromolecular Rapid Communications
- Volume:
- 41
- Issue:
- 15
- ISSN:
- 1022-1336
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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