{"id":1718,"date":"2020-12-03T11:23:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T10:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2021-01-26T16:19:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T15:19:11","slug":"stiffness-tomography-of-ultra%e2%80%90soft-nanogels-by-atomic-force-microscopy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/?p=1718","title":{"rendered":"Stiffness tomography of ultra\u2010soft nanogels by atomic force microscopy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"233\" src=\"http:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer-1024x233.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1725\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer-1024x233.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer-300x68.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer-768x175.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer.png 1248w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The softness of nanohydrogels results in unique properties and recently attracted tremendous interest due to the multi\u2010functionalization of interfaces. For all these applications, the nanogels\u2019 structure is of great importance but was not investigable on a nanometric scale before. In this article, we study extremely soft temperature\u2010sensitive ultra\u2010low cross\u2010linked (ULC) nanogels adsorbed to the solid\/water interface by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Their extreme softness hampers the imaging: the ULC nanogels are \u201cinvisible\u201d in the classical 2D height image since a sharp tip fully penetrates these porous networks with very low forces in the range of steric interactions (ca.&nbsp;100&nbsp;pN). Nonetheless, the detailed evaluation of Force Volume data allows us to resolve their overall shape and at the same time their internal structure with nanometric and piconewton resolution in all three dimensions. The nanogels exhibit an extraordinary disk\u2010like and entirely homogeneous but extremely soft structure &#8211; even softer than polymer brushes. Moreover, the temperature\u2010sensitive nanogels can be switched on demand between the ultra\u2010soft and a very stiff state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>M. F. Schulte, S. Bochenek, M. Brugnoni, A. Scotti, A. Mourran, and W. Richtering<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. <strong>2020<\/strong>, DOI: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/anie.202011615\">10.1002\/anie.202011615<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Angew. Chem., <strong>2020<\/strong>, DOI: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/ange.202011615\">10.1002\/ange.202011615<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about this in the ChemViews Highlight Article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chemistryviews.org\/details\/ezine\/11279440\/Structure_of_UltraSoft_Nanogels_Investigated.html\">https:\/\/www.chemistryviews.org\/details\/ezine\/11279440\/Structure_of_UltraSoft_Nanogels_Investigated.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The softness of nanohydrogels results in unique properties and recently attracted tremendous interest due to the multi\u2010functionalization of interfaces. For<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Anna Eisele","author_link":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/?author=3"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TOC-StiffnessTomography-quer-300x68.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/?cat=34\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Highlights<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Highlights<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"2","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 3, 2020","modified":"Updated on January 26, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 3, 2020 11:23","modified":"Updated on January 26, 2021 16:19"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microgels.rwth-aachen.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}