Journal
LANGMUIR
Volume 18, Issue 6, Pages 2174-2182Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/la0112514
Keywords
-
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We present experimental evidence of the Rayleigh-Plateau instability of a single chain in poor solvent conditions using single molecule force microscopy, Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) are adsorbed onto silicon nitride surfaces in various solutions corresponding to poor and good solvent conditions. In good solvent conditions, the force-separation profile is identical to that described previously and attributed to the elastic stretching of single polymer chains. However, in poor solvent conditions. we see a dramatically different force profile, characterized by steps or plateaus of constant force. These plateaus represent the pull-out of chain segments from collapsed globules of polymer collected at each of the separating surfaces. A statistical analysis of the large number of force profiles collected indicates that these plateaus are quantized, suggesting pull-out of several chains of different length, Moreover, the frequency of the steps suggests that we can distinguish pulled loops from pulled tails.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available