Molecular reorganization in bulk bottlebrush polymers: Direct observation: Via nanoscale imaging

Nikolay Borodinov, Alex Belianinov, Dongsook Chang, Jan Michael Carrillo, Matthew J. Burch, Yuewen Xu, Kunlun Hong, Anton V. Ievlev, Bobby G. Sumpter, Olga S. Ovchinnikova

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bottlebrush polymers are important for a variety of applications ranging from drug delivery to electronics. The functional flexibility of the branched sidechains has unique assembly properties when compared to linear block polymer systems. However, reports of direct observation of molecular reorganization have been sparse. This information is necessary to enhance the understanding of the structure-property relationships in these systems and yield a rational design approach for novel polymeric materials. In this work, we report direct visualization of bottlebrush molecular organization and the formation of nematic-type ordering in an amorphous polymer bottlebrush system, captured with plasma etching and helium ion microscopy. By observing the unperturbed structure of this material at high resolution and quantifying image features, we were able to qualitatively link experimental results with structures predicted by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. The direct visualization and computation workflow developed in this work can be applied to a broad variety of polymers with different architectures, linking imaging results with other, independent channels of information for better understanding and control of these classes of materials.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)18001-18009
Number of pages9
JournalNanoscale
Volume10
Issue number37
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2018

Funding

Notice: This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC0500OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for the United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/ doe-public-access-plan).

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