AFM Observation of Immobilized Self-Oscillating Polymer

Abstract

Various types of nanocomponents have been developed to construct a nanodevice or nanomachine. Here, we add a new nanocomponent that has the function of self-oscillation. A thermoresponsive polymer carrying a Ru complex, a catalyst of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, was synthesized and immobilized on a glass plate. Periodic turbidity changes in the aqueous solution of the polymer were observed, and nanoscale self-oscillation of the immobilized polymer was observed by a scanning probe microscope.

Function and Autonomous Behavior of Self-Oscillating Polymer Systems

“…Autonomous polymer systems containing pH control sites with a high potential for controlling self-oscillating behavior [29][30][31][32][33] are introduced. Information about the detailed motion of the self-oscillating polymer chain is of great significance for the design of autonomous molecular robot systems; techniques for the direct observation of self-oscillating polymer chains, such as scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) [34,35] are introduced.…”

“…The direct observation of polymer chain self-oscillation was recently achieved by using SPM and QCM-D [34,35]. To measure self-oscillating behavior via SPM and QCM-D, polymer chains containing an anchoring unit to solid surfaces (glass and gold surfaces) were synthesized.…”

Self-Oscillating Gel as Novel Biomimetic Materials

“…The self-oscillating polymer was covalently immobilized on a glass surface and self-oscillation was directly observed at a molecular level by AFM (Ito et al, 2006). The self-oscillating polymer with N-succinimidyl group was immobilized on an aminosilane-coupled glass plate.…”

Development of self-oscillating polymers and gels with autonomous function

“…The self-oscillating polymer was covalently immobilized on a glass surface, and self-oscillation was directly observed at the molecular level by AFM. 33 The self-oscillating polymer with the N-succinimidyl group was immobilized on an aminosilane-coupled glass plate. Although no oscillation was observed in pure water, nanoscale oscillation was observed in an aqueous solution containing BZ substrates.…”