Softening of the stiffness of bottle-brush polymers by mutual interaction

We study bottle-brush macromolecules in a good solvent by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), static light scattering (SLS), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). These polymers consist of a linear backbone to which long side chains are chemically grafted. The backbone contains about 1600 monomer units (weight average) and every second monomer unit carries side chains with approximately 60 monomer units. The SLS and SANS data extrapolated to infinite dilution lead to the form factor of the polymer that can be described in terms of a wormlike chain with a contour length of 380 nm and a persistence length of 17.5 nm. An analysis of the DLS data confirms these model parameters. The scattering intensities taken at finite concentration can be modeled using the polymer reference interaction site model. It reveals a softening of the bottle-brush polymers caused by their mutual interaction. We demonstrate that the persistence decreases from 17.5 nm down to 5 nm upon increasing the concentration from dilute solution to the highest concentration (40.59 gl) under consideration. The observed softening of the chains is comparable to the theoretically predicted decrease of the electrostatic persistence length of linear polyelectrolyte chains at finite concentrations.