Gold Nanoparticles with Covalently Attached Polymer Chains This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. H. Weller, Institut für Physikalische Chemie der Universität Hamburg, for the transmission electron microscopy pictures and to Prof. Dr. M. Möller and Dipl.-Chem. Bernd Tartsch, Abteilung Organische Chemie III der Universität Ulm, for the scanning forcce microscopy investigations.

Abstract

“Living”/controlled radical polymerization according to the atom transfer radical polymerization mechanism is a suitable method for the graft‐polymerization of nanoparticles (see scheme). With this method, in which the core nanoparticles remain unchanged, the chain length and therefore the thickness of the polymer shell can be adjusted.

End-Grafted Polymer Chains onto Inorganic Nano-Objects

“…The resulting gold/polymer nanocomposite consisted of “brush-type” shells of linear macromolecules which upon the introduction of a terminal mesogen by means of a quantitative termination reaction resulted in an amphiphilic core-shell structures of well-defined hydrophilic/lipophilic balance [241]. Among the syntheses used, si-ATRP from self-assembled monolayers of bromofunctionalized thiolates on gold nanoparticles appears as the most versatile and facile method for the development of structurally controlled hybrids with a gold core of several nanometers in diameter and a shell of variable thickness composed of well-defined, dense polymer brushes [237,238]. These highly grafted hybrids exhibit an intense surface plasmon absorption band which is blue shifted when increasing the grafted polymer chain length suggesting the improved stabilization of the gold colloids as the size of the polymer stabiliser increases [230].…”

Polylysine-grafted Au144nanoclusters: birth and growth of a healthy surface-plasmon-resonance-like band

“…38 Concerning the grafting-from method, a few examples have been reported. 39–44 However, we are not aware of direct polymerization methods for the preparation of core–shell Au NP/poly(amino acid) systems. This approach would be of particular interest because the covalent bonding of poly(amino acid) chains to the gold core would grant a high stability to these systems in physiological liquids, and also in view of achieving a high grafting density on the NP’s surface.…”

Shape control synthesis of polymeric hybrid nanoparticles via surface‐initiated atom‐transfer radical polymerization

“…Many preparation methods of polymeric hybrid gold nanoparticles had been reported on the polymer immobilizing on gold nanoparticles via thiol, including utilizing the initiator with thiol end‐group to start surface‐initiated atom‐transfer radical polymerization (SI‐ATRP), taking emulsion method to form polymer on the surface of gold nanoparticles, or modulating self‐assembly of nanoparticles, Among them, the surface‐initiated living radical polymerization (SI‐LRP) is becoming a popular method to prepare polymeric hybrid gold nanoparticles, especially to core–shell nanoparticles. It is because that SI‐LRP technique has advantage to control the thickness of the polymer shells …”