Intermolecular crowding of densely tethered polymers promotes chain extension and anisotropy that induces many unique properties. In this study, we used conformation-sensitive infrared spectroscopy to determine that chain extension in a polymer brush is associated with local conformation rearrangements, i.e., contraction of side groups and increased proportion of gauche twists in the backbone, which served to increase molecular disorder at or below the segmental scale. This conformational transition points to a particular molecular mechanism for chain extension in densely tethered polymers, wherein increased local disorder facilitates global chain ordering (i.e., chain extension) and therefore supplements our current understanding of chain orientation at a molecular level.

中文翻译：

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局部疾病促进拥挤的聚合物刷子中链的拉伸。

分子间的密集束缚聚合物拥挤促进了链延伸和各向异性，从而引发了许多独特的性能。在这项研究中，我们使用构象敏感的红外光谱确定聚合物刷中的链延伸与局部构象重排有关，即侧基的收缩和骨架中网状扭曲的比例增加，从而增加了分子的无序度。或低于细分规模。这种构象转变指向致密连接的聚合物中链扩展的特定分子机制，其中增加的局部无序性促进了整体链的有序化（即链扩展），因此补充了我们目前在分子水平上对链取向的理解。