Nanostructured smart polymer materials with adaptive / responsive adhesion properties

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Alla Synytska
• Subject Area: Experimental and Theoretical Physics of Polymers
• Term: from 2008 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 65020956

Control of adhesion is very important for many industrial processes, health care applications, everyday usage, etc. Many efforts were directed towards fabrication of materials with either low or strong adhesion depending on the field of application. However, design of “smart” surfaces with reversibly switchable/controllable adhesion is still a highly challenging task. Such materials can be of great importance for numerous applications ranging from microelectronics to pharmaceutical and medical applications. The project aims to develop synthetic routes to new switchable systems based on mixed polymer brushes developed on flat and rough surfaces and films of lightly cross-linked block copolymers as their more robust analogous. The new “smart” materials will be able to self-tune their adhesion behaviour depending on the substrate to which they are applied. Design and investigation of switchable1 and adaptable2 adhesives based on binary brushes is considered as a first goal. Here, we will be looking for a combination of polymers demonstrating the most pronounced switching and adaptive behaviour under external stimuli (solvent, pH, temperature, etc.). Complementary to the experimental work computer simulations to study the dynamics and meta-stable states of mixed polymer brushes will be performed. Second, special benefits are expected from implementation of roughness in system. Thus, we will systematically investigate the effect of surface topographical patterns and roughness (micro- and/or nano-structuring) on switchable/adaptable surface properties. Since one of the limitations of use of polymer brushes is relatively small “life time” due to their rather poor mechanical stability, the third aim is the fabrication of mechanically robust “smart” surfaces based on lightly cross-linked block copolymer films. Destruction and removing of the nanostructures from the topmost layer of such films will recover underlying layers with identical properties (“self-repairing” effect).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants