End-tethered charged chains at surfaces

We present here a short review covering most of the experimental results on tethering charged chains by an end to a surface. A first class of experiments deals with solid surfaces where charged chains are either chemically grafted or adsorbed through a purposely chosen moiety. Structural studies have been carried out by scattering methods, spectroscopic techniques or microscopy. Forces between the polyelectrolyte layers covering the surfaces have also been obtained by using for instance, the surface force apparatus (SFA). A second class of experiments concerns polyelectrolytes, which are end-tethered to flexible surfaces like air-liquid or liquid-liquid interfaces. These experiments are fewer in number and mainly rely on the adsorption or spreading of charged diblock copolymers at the fluid interfaces. (C) 2000 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.