Tailoring surface properties by organic reaction and surface-initiated polymerization

Abstract

We report that surface properties can easily be manipulated by organic reaction and surface-initiated polymerization of functional monomers. The studies reported herein have a great potential in the applications including nanodevices, sensors, biofunctional surfaces, and nanotechnology. Using surface-initiated polymerization of several monomers having functional organic moieties through atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), we coated well-defined polymer layers on the surfaces of gold and carbon nanotubes. It is a well-known method to use polymers to tailor surface properties, but the conventional ‘grafting-to’ approach have several serious disadvantages for applications in nanotechnology, such as difficulty in controlling thickness and packing density. In this paper, we established a method for tailoring surface properties by growing functional polymer layers from the surfaces of gold and carbon nanotubes by grafting-from approach. It is very important to control surface pr