Fig. 1. Effect of adding Nile Blue 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl carbamate (NBC) on the kinetics of surface ATRP of CysMA and OEGMA from planar substrates. (a–c) Show the evolution of the ellipsometric dry brush thickness with polymerisation time for the growth of PCysMA and POEGMA brushes from initiator-functionalized planar silicon wafers at 30 °C. Black dots represent brush syntheses conducted with no NBC in the reaction mixture and red dots represent experiments in which NBC was present. (a) APTES–BiB functionalized wafers; [CysMA] = 0.88 mol kg–1 [CysMA] : [bpy] : [Cu(i)Br] : [Cu(ii)Br2] : ([NBC]) = 70 : 3 : 1 : 0.5 : (0.4). (b) APTES–BiB functionalized wafers; [OEGMA] (DP ∼ 8) = 1.02 mol kg–1 [OEGMA] : [bpy] : [Cu(i)Br] : [Cu(ii)Br2] : ([NBC]) = 62 : 3 : 1 : 0.3 : (0.03). (c) CMPTS functionalized wafers; [OEGMA] = 1.01 mol kg–1, [OEGMA] : [CuBr] : [Cu(ii)Br2] : [Bipy] : ([NBC]) molar ratio = 60 : 1.0 : 0.3 : 2.5, (0.1), in H2O. In (b) and (c), Mn = 475 g mol–1.
