Dual-responsive polymer brushes as an electrochemical logic gate

Abstract Stimuli-responsive polymer brushes modified surfaces and binary polymer surfaces can be created on an initiator terminated substrate via surface initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP), in which the growth kinetics can be modulated by Cu(II) ratio. As stimuli-responsive brushes, many environmental triggers can drive their conformation change such as pH and salt concentration. The external-stimuli modulated reversible conformational changes of polymer brushes can influence the charge transport behavior investigated by electrochemistry method, which have potential applications in in situ switching ion permeability and charge transport. The charge transport of binary polymer brush can be switched on or off by different ion flexibly which is an electrochemical logic switch.