Abstract

A polymer brush is made up of a number of polymer chains that are assembled, with one end of which fixed to a surface or interface. The distances between the polymer chains are generally smaller than their radius of gyration. The free ends of the polymer chains extend away from the surface or interface due to a strong steric hindrance. According to the substrate curvature, polymer brush could be divided into three categories: flat polymer brush, spherical polymer brush and star polymer brush, among them spherical polymer brush is easy to be functionalized both for the core and the brush shell and could be applied both in solid and aqueous circumstances. Thus, spherical polymer brushes have been systematically investigated in aspects like structure design, preparation strategy, and potential applications in many fields. Typically, core materials could be inorganic like silica or organic like polystyrene or another polymer.