Modification of a surface with polymer brushes has emerged as an effective approach to tune the properties of a substrate. Brushes grown from an inimer‐containing cross‐linkable polymer coating provide significant advantages compared to other “grafting‐from” methods, such as improved stability, increased grafting density, and the potential to control the grafting density. So far, the inimer coating method has only been applied for surface‐initiated controlled radical polymerizations. In this work, an approach is presented for the fabrication of a stable cross‐linked ultra‐thin polymer coating containing hydroxyl groups which serve as initiating sites for surface‐initiated ring‐opening polymerization (SI‐ROP). The polymers used for the fabrication of the coatings consist of 2‐((tetrahydro‐2H‐pyran‐2‐yl)oxy)ethyl methacrylate (THPEMA), a small fraction of a cross‐linkable unit, and a diluent styrene. Three coatings with varying THPEMA and styrene content are fabricated, and poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) and poly(caprolactone) (PCL) brushes are grown by SI‐ROP of hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (D3), and ε‐caprolactone respectively. The brushes are characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), static contact angle measurements, ellipsometry and size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The results demonstrate a well‐controlled ROP of D3 and ability to control grafting density by tuning the THPEMA content of the coatings.

中文翻译：

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通过交联聚合物薄膜表面引发的开环聚合实现聚合物刷生长


使用聚合物刷子对表面进行改性已成为调整基材特性的有效方法。与其他“接枝”方法相比，由含有初始体的可交联聚合物涂层生长的刷子具有显着的优势，例如提高稳定性、增加接枝密度以及控制接枝密度的潜力。到目前为止，Inimer 涂层方法仅适用于表面引发的受控自由基聚合。在这项工作中，提出了一种制造稳定的交联超薄聚合物涂层的方法，该涂层含有羟基，作为表面引发开环聚合 （SI-ROP） 的起始位点。用于制造涂料的聚合物由 2-（（四氢-2H-吡喃-2-基）氧基）甲基丙烯酸乙酯 （THPEMA）、一小部分可交联单元和稀释剂苯乙烯组成。制备了三种具有不同 THPEMA 和苯乙烯含量的涂层，并通过六甲基环三硅氧烷 （D3） 和 ε-己内酯的 SI-ROP 分别生长聚（二甲基硅氧烷）（PDMS） 和聚己内酯（PCL）刷。通过原子力显微镜 （AFM）、X 射线光电子能谱 （XPS）、静态接触角测量、椭圆偏振法和尺寸排阻色谱法 （SEC） 对电刷进行表征。结果表明，D3 的 ROP 得到良好控制，并且能够通过调整涂层的 THPEMA 含量来控制接枝密度。