Single flexible hydrophobic polyelectrolyte molecules adsorbed on solid substrate: transition between a stretched chain, necklace-like conformation and a globule

Sergiy Minko; Anton Kiriy; Ganna Gorodyska; Manfred Stamm

doi:10.1021/ja017767r

Single flexible hydrophobic polyelectrolyte molecules adsorbed on solid substrate: transition between a stretched chain, necklace-like conformation and a globule

J Am Chem Soc. 2002 Apr 3;124(13):3218-9. doi: 10.1021/ja017767r.

Authors

Sergiy Minko¹, Anton Kiriy, Ganna Gorodyska, Manfred Stamm

Affiliation

¹ Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Hohe Strasse 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany. minko@ipfdd.de

PMID: 11916400
DOI: 10.1021/ja017767r

Abstract

Single flexible polyelectrolyte molecules of poly(2-vinylpyridine) undergo conformational transition from a stretched wormlike coil to a necklace-like globule, and to a compact globule depending on pH and ionic strength in aqueous solution in good agreement with recent theoretical reports. AFM investigations allow the visualization of details of the chain conformation on mica and the extraction of quantitative statistics of molecular dimensions.