A versatile method for coating surfaces with functional and responsive polymer-based films

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Zhang, Qiang
  • Serpe, Michael J.

• A versatile surface modification technique was developed to yield poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAm) microgel-based thin films on a variety of substrates, e.g., metals, nonmetals, and polymers. Because the chemistry, and hence functionality and responsivity, of the pNIPAm-based microgels is easily tuned, multifunctional and responsive thin films could be generated on many different surfaces without varying the coating conditions. In one case, we showed that fluorescent/light emitting thin films could be generated using crystal violet-modified microgels. Antibacterial films could be obtained using silver nanoparticle-modified pNIPAm-based microgels. Finally, we show that thin films fabricated via the methods here could be used as a component in optical sensors. Although we show only a few examples of the utility of this approach, we feel that the apparent universality of the technique can be extended to countless other applications.

• Date created

  2015-01-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Surface Modification
  • Responsive Polymers
  • Functional Coatings
  • Sensing
  • Responsive Microgels

• Type of Item

  Article (Draft / Submitted)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-twhp-v914

• License

  © American Chemical Society, 2015. This is an open access article which is free to download and share.