Polyelectrolyte brushes

We survey recent progress made in the field of polyelectrolyte brushes. These systems consist of long polyelectrolyte chains that are grafted densely to planar or curved surfaces. The main feature of all polyelectrolyte brushes is the strong confinement of the counterions within the brush layer. The high osmotic pressure which is thus built up explains the unusual features of these systems. Here we focus on the most recent experimental developments which are rationalized on the basis of existing theoretical predictions and opens new challenging problems. In particular, we shall discuss briefly the experimental systems used for comparing theory and experiment lately. Moreover, we review various aspects related to the experimental analysis of polyelectrolyte brushes. As a final point, we survey trends in recent applications which demonstrate that polyelectrolyte brushes have an excellent prospect for future nanotechnology. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.