Polymer brushes are thin polymer films that consist of
densely
grafted, chain-end tethered polymers. These thin polymer films can
be produced either by anchoring presynthesized chain-end functional
polymers to the surface of interest (“grafting to”),
or by using appropriately modified surfaces to facilitate growth of
polymer chains from the substrate (“grafting from”).
The vast majority of polymer brushes that have been prepared and studied
so far involved chain-end tethered polymer assemblies that are anchored
to the surface via covalent bonds. In contrast, the use of noncovalent
interactions to prepare chain-end tethered polymer thin films is much
less explored. Anchoring or growing polymer chains using noncovalent
interactions results in supramolecular polymer brushes. Supramolecular
polymer brushes may possess unique chain dynamics as opposed to their
covalently tethered counterparts, which could provide avenues to,
for example, renewable or (self-)healable surface coatings. This Perspective
article provides an overview of the various approaches that have been
used so far to prepare supramolecular polymer brushes. After presenting
an overview of the various approaches that have been used to prepare
supramolecular brushes via the “grafting to” strategy,
examples will be presented of strategies that have been successfully
applied to produce supramolecular polymer brushes via “grafting
from” methods.