Background Due to the industrial significance, elongational viscosity of polymeric liquids has been widely investigated. In particular, strain hardening, which is the deviation of the elongational viscosity from the linear viscoelastic envelope, has been of industrial and scientific interest because polymeric liquids exhibiting strain hardening are suitable for processing technologies with elon...

We report a combined top-down/bottom-up hierarchical approach to fabricate massively parallel arrays of aligned nanoscale domains by means of the self-assembly of asymmetric polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene-alt-propylene) diblock copolymers. Silicon nitride grating substrates of various depths and periodicities are used to template the alignment of the high-aspect-ratio cylindrical polymer domai...

A polymer blend system consisting of polystyrene grafted onto poly (p-phenylene ethynylene) (PS-g-PPE) and poly (styrene-blockisoprene-block-styrene) triblock copolymer (SIS) yields highly polarized emission due to the unidirectional alignment of the PPE molecules. During the roll casting, the triblock copolymer microphase separates and creates unidirectionally aligned PS cylindrical microdomai...

A photo-crosslinked polystyrene (PS) thin film is investigated as a potential guiding sub-layer for polystyrene-block-poly (methyl methacrylate) block copolymer (BCP) cylindrical nanopattern formation via topographic directed self-assembly (DSA). When compared to a non-crosslinked PS brush sub-layer, the photo-crosslinked PS sub-layer provided longer correlation lengths of the BCP nanostructure...

The development and study of a benchtop, high-throughput, and inexpensive fabrication strategy to obtain hierarchical patterns of biomolecules with sub-50 nm resolution is presented. A diblock copolymer of polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide), PS-b-PEO, is synthesized with biotin capping the PEO block and 4-bromostyrene copolymerized within the polystyrene block at 5 wt %. These two handles allow...

Herein we describe the preparation of hybrid polymer-inorganic interfaces by the immobilization of polyoxometalate nanoclusters on functionalized polymer surfaces. The polymeric surfaces were made of polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid)/polystyrene (PS-b-PAA/PS) blends by spin coating on a silicon wafer. The functionalization of the polymer film was obtained by interfacial migration of the amphiphi...

Molecular Dynamics simulations are used to explore the structure and dynamics of polystyrene confined in 2nm slit pores, between surfactant-bearing mica-type surfaces. The systems simulated resemble experimentally studied intercalated nanocomposites, where polystyrene is inserted between alkyl-ammonium modified fluorohectorite silicate layers. The molecular modeling perspective complements the ...

Materials and Instruments: All chemicals were used as received without further purification. Hydrogen tetrachloroaurate(III) hydrate (HAuCl4·3H2O), 99.9% (metal basis Au 49%) was purchased from Alfa Aesar; sodium citrate tribasic dihydrate (99.0%), hydroquinone (99.5%) and AgNO3 (99.9999%) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich; 2-mercaptobenzoimidazole-5-carboxylic acid was purchased from Tokyo Che...

Using self-assembled block copolymers as templates, catalytically active nanostructures with controlled size and space have been produced. A self-assembled polystyrene-b-polyferrocenylsilane thin film and monolayer of surface micelles of cobalt-complexed polystyrene-b-poly(2-vinylpyridine) are fully compatible with novolac-based conventional photoresists. Combining bottom-up self-assembly of ca...

Microplates with integrated optical oxygen sensors are a new tool to study metabolic rates and enzyme activities. Precise measurements are possible only if oxygen exchange between the sample and the environment is known. In this study we quantify gas exchange in plastic microplates. Dissolved oxygen was detected using either an oxygen-sensitive film fixed at the bottom of each well or a needle-...