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Structure and collapse of a surface-grown strong polyelectrolyte brush on sapphire.

Polyelectrolyte brushes model charged polymer interfaces in biology and colloid science. This publication made high-resolution measurements of the water-swollen structure of a densely-grafted polyelectrolyte brush on an adsorbing surface using neutron reflectometry. This definitively confirmed a theoretically-predicted segregation into a dense surface layer and a diffuse brush-like layer. A major technical first was covalent functionalisation of sapphire single crystal surfaces to enable high contrast neutron reflectometry of a non-deuterated soft matter system. Authors citing this paper include Prof. Dominic Tildesley, former Chief Scientist of Unilever Personal Care and current Director of the Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moleculaire.