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Published on: March 16, 2020
Single-molecule force spectroscopy of selenium-containing amphiphilic block copolymer: toward disassembling the
1Key Lab of Organic Optoelectronics and Molecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Selenium-containing polymers are a new type of responsive polymer material. Here, a selenium-containing amphiphilic block copolymer (PEG-PUSe-PEG) has been investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS). The deviation between force-extension curves of PEG-PUSe-PEG in water and in DMSO is found to be related to the disassembly of the micellar structures in water. SMFS experiments on PEG-PUSeox-PEG suggest that the change from selenide to oxidized selenone contributes significantly to the change in amphiphilicity, without obviously influencing the single-chain elasticity.
