Polymer brush-nanoparticle nanocomposites for enhanced sensing applications

• Applicant: Dr. Smrati Gupta
• Subject Area: Preparatory and Physical Chemistry of Polymers
• Term: from 2011 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 211753982

This work aims to the fabrication of polymer brushes-metal nanoparticles assemblies for the direct use in micro- and nanotechnological applications. Based on our recent development, thin nanocomposite films composed of stimuli responsive polymer brushes and noble metal nanoparticles will be prepared. The resulting nanoassemblies will be applied as highly sensitive sensors by means of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) taking the advantages of stability, tuneable optical properties of the immobilized metal nanoparticles and external stimuli responsiveness of grafted polymer brushes. The described approach offers an effective way towards the stabilization of NPs within macroscopic surfaces and can be used for the fabrication of a wide range of polymer brush nanoassemblies. The experimental work will be accompanied by a detailed characterization using ellipsometry, contact angle measurements, atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-vis, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy to establish a meaningful structure-property relationship. Another aspect of the project is to study the effect of different parameters such as chemical composition, architecture and grafting density of polymer brushes and chemical nature, size, shape and concentration of immobilized nanoparticles on the performance of the fabricated nanoassemblies as SERS substrates.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants