Process for preparing a patterned continuous polymeric brush on a substrate surface

A method for forming a continuous polymeric brush that is patterned into two or more chemically distinct regions, comprising:

• (a) providing a substrate having a surface to which molecular moieties can covalently bind;
• (b) contacting the surface with a derivatizing composition comprised of a derivatizing moiety having a reactive site and a functional group under reaction conditions effective to promote covalent binding of the derivatizing moiety through its reactive site to the surface, thereby providing surface-bound functional groups to serve as polymerization initiation sites;
• (c) conducting surface-initiated polymerization by contacting the substrate surface provided in step (b) with a polymerization composition under polymerization conditions, wherein the polymerization composition is comprised of monomers having labile groups selected from the group consisting of acid-labile, base-labile, and photolabile groups, thereby forming a continuous polymer brush containing labile groups;
• and
• (d) applying a cleavage agent selected from the group consisting of acid, base, and radiation to the continuous polymer brush in a predetermined pattern under conditions that result in removal of the labile groups in at least one first region of the continuous polymer brush but not in at least one second region of the continuous polymer brush.

A method for forming a continuous polymeric brush that is patterned into two or more chemically distinct regions, comprising:

• (a) providing a substrate having a surface to which molecular moieties can covalently bind;
• (b) contacting the surface with a derivatizing composition comprised of a derivatizing moiety having a reactive site and a functional group under reaction conditions effective to promote covalent binding of the derivatizing moiety through its reactive site to the surface, thereby providing surface-bound functional groups to serve as polymerization initiation sites;
• (c) conducting surface-initiated polymerization by contacting the substrate surface provided in step (b) with a polymerization composition under polymerization conditions, wherein the polymerization composition is comprised of monomers having photo-labile groups thereby forming a continuous polymer brush containing photo-labile groups;
• and
• (d) applying radiation to the continuous polymer brush in a predetermined pattern under conditions that result in removal of the photo-labile groups in at least one first region of the continuous polymer brush and are not removed in at least one second region of the continuous polymer brush.