화학공학소재연구정보센터
Advanced Functional Materials, Vol.22, No.2, 429-434, 2012
Manipulating the Motion of Gold Aggregates Using Stimulus-Responsive Patterned Polymer Brushes as a Motor
An important goal and major challenge of material science and nanotechnology is building nanomotors for manipulating the motion of nanoparticles (NPs). Here, it is demonstrated that patterned, stimulus-responsive polymer brush microstructures can be used as motor arrays to manipulate the movement of gold NP aggregates in response to external stimuli that induce a conformational change in the brushes as the driving force. The motion of NP aggregates in the out-of-plane direction is achieved with displacements ranging from nanometers to sub-micrometers. These patterned polymer-brush microstructures can find applications as efficient motor arrays and nanosensors, and benefit the design of more complex nanodevices.