CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Contrary to what scientists have long thought, recent experiments at the University of Illinois have revealed that flexible polymers stuck to a solid surface crawl around in a very different way than they would in the bulk. This is important because the properties of polymers at surfaces play a central role in issues as wide-ranging as adhesives, coatings and biomedical implants.
"A polymer in 'Flatland' may sound like science fiction, but every bulk phase is connected to adjoining ones through its surface," said Steve Granick, a professor of materials science at the UI. Flatland refers to the title of an 1880 novel by Edwin Abbott that takes place essentially on a flat surface. "By examining the characteristics of individual polymeric chains, we can better predict the behavior and performance of bulk polymers."
As reported in the July 13 issue of the journal Nature, Granick and his UI colleagues -- biophysicist Enrico Gratton, materials scientist Kenneth Schweizer and postdoctoral research associates Svetlana Sukhishvili, Yan Chen and Joachim Muller -- exposed a specially prepared solid surface to a dilute solution of polyethylene glycol chains of varying length. Then they used an extremely sensitive measurement technique called two-photon fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, developed by biophysicists but never applied previously to materials science problems, to monitor the motions of individual molecules.
"Conventional theory said that a molecule twice as long would move half as fast," Granick said. "But our study shows a stronger dependence on chain length. Now the theorists must resharpen their pencils and make sense of observations that don't agree with their preconceptions."
When a molecular chain moves on a surface, it can't just go in any direction at random, Granick said. There is a preferred motion that lies in the direction the chain is pointed. This restrained motion is known to occur in bulk flexible polym
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Contact: James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
kloeppel@uiuc.edu
217-244-1073
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
12-Jul-2000