Separation of Linear and Star Chains by a Nanopore

A study was conducted to demonstrate the separation of linear and star chains by a nanopore. It was demonstrated that it was practically possible to separate linear and star chains by flushing a mixture of them through a nanopore with a properly chosen flow rate. Polystyrene (PS) linear and star chains were synthesized with different lengths by using divinylbenzene to couple living polystyl linear chains in solution. The prepared star chains were fractionated into a series of narrowly distribution star chains with different numbers of arms. modified commercial LLS spectrometer equipped with a multi-τ digital time correlator and a cylindrical 22 mW UNIPHASE He-Ne laser was used to characterize each solution before and after it passed through the nanopores. The incident beam was vertically polarized with respect to the scattering plane.