Abstract
A third class of polymer gel, termed a "slide-ring (topological)" gel, which is based on mobile cross-linker with a figure-of-eight structured dimer of cyclodextrin has been attracting numerous attentions; because of its remarkable physical properties such as large extensibility and mechanical strength. In this study, we applied atmospheric microplasma, based on microwave strip-line technology, to surface functionalization of a slide-ring gel to improve the surface hydrophilicity. When the gel surface was modified with microplasma in ambient air, the contact angle drastically changed into nearly 0° from the original angle of 46°. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) after the treatment indicated 3.3 at.% atomic oxygen increase and 3.4 at.% atomic carbon decrease, respectively. These results suggest that the slide-ring gel surface is highly sensitive to the atmospheric microplasma and is functionalized promptly/effectively for biomimetic applications with less thermal damages even in ambient air.
