Nanostructured smart polymer materials with adaptive / responsive adhesion properties

粘附力的控制对于许多工业过程、医疗保健应用、日常使用等是非常重要的。根据应用领域，许多努力针对具有低粘附力或强粘附力的材料的制造。然而，具有可逆切换/可控粘附的“智能”表面的设计仍然是一项极具挑战性的任务。这种材料对于从微电子到制药和医疗应用的许多应用都非常重要。该项目旨在开发新的可切换系统的合成路线，该系统基于在平坦和粗糙表面上开发的混合聚合物刷和轻度交联嵌段共聚物薄膜，作为其更强大的类似物。新的“智能”材料将能够根据它们所应用的基底来自我调节它们的粘附行为。设计和研究基于二元刷的可切换1和自适应2粘合剂被认为是第一个目标。在这里，我们将寻找在外部刺激（溶剂，pH值，温度等）下表现出最明显的开关和自适应行为的聚合物组合。作为实验工作的补充，将进行计算机模拟，以研究混合聚合物刷的动态和亚稳态。第二，预计系统粗糙度的实施将带来特别的好处。因此，我们将系统地研究表面形貌图案和粗糙度（微米和/或纳米结构）对可切换/可适应表面特性的影响。由于聚合物刷的使用的限制之一是由于它们的机械稳定性相当差而导致的相对小的“寿命”，第三个目的是基于轻度交联的嵌段共聚物膜制造机械坚固的“智能”表面。从这种膜的最顶层破坏和去除纳米结构将恢复具有相同性质的下层（“自修复”效应）。

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).