FRET‐Integrated Polymer Brushes for Spatially Resolved Sensing of Changes in Polymer Conformation

Polymer brush surfaces that alter their physical properties in response to chemical stimuli have the capacity to be used as new surface‐based sensing materials. For such surfaces, detecting the polymer conformation is key to their sensing capabilities. Herein, we report on FRET‐integrated ultrathin (
FRET chemistry was integrated within stimuli‐responsive polymer brush layers on planar substrates for spatial sensing of changing polymer conformations. Sensing was demonstrated for a variety of liquid mixture compositions, including high‐resolution observation of lateral differences in polymer conformation at immiscible liquid interfaces (see picture), thus offering great potential to be leveraged for new surface‐based sensing devices.