AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition
    Thin Film Monday Sessions
       Session TF-MoA

Paper TF-MoA8
Ultralow Friction and Adhesion on Fluorinated Covalently Surface-Bound Polymer Brushes

Monday, November 10, 2014, 4:20 pm, Room 305

Session: Self-Assembled Monolayers, Layer-by-Layer Assemblies, and Hydrophobic/Amphiphobic Thin Films
Presenter: Han Zuilhof, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Authors: S. Pujari, Wageningen University, Netherlands
N. Bhairamadgi, Wageningen University, Netherlands
H. Zuilhof, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Correspondent: Click to Email
For an ever increasing range of applications, such as in MEMS and NEMS, highly stable surfaces with minimal adhesion and friction are desired. In the current paper we present a method to achieve such polymer surfaces via a combination of high-density attachment of surface-bound initiators on the Si(111) surface followed by a surface-initiated ATRP reaction with a series of fluorine-rich methacrylate monomer. Subsequently, the adhesion and friction forces were determined using colloidal probe scanning force microscopy. The resulting surfaces display the lowest adhesion force and friction coefficient in air currently reported for any flat surface, which is for example about 1 order of magnitude less than teflon, yet with an appreciably higher chemical and mechanical stability. The presentation will focus on preparation and characterization (both structural and tribological) of these surface-bound polymer brushes, and outline the potential of such minimally interacting surfaces.