Stably Doped Conducting Polymer Nanoshells by Surface Initiated Polymerization

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Abstract
Despite broad applications ranging from electronics to biomedical sensing and imaging, a long-standing problem of conducting polymers is the poor resistance to dedoping, which directly affects their signature electrical and optical properties. This problem is particularly significant for biomedical uses because of fast leaching of dopant ions in physiological environments. Here, we describe a new approach to engineer multimodal core–shell nanoparticles with a stably doped conductive polymer shell in biological environments. It was achieved by making a densely packed polymer brush rather than changing its molecular structure. Polyaniline (PANI) was used as a model compound due to its concentrated near-infrared (NIR) absorption. It was grafted onto a magnetic nanoparticle via a polydopamine intermediate layer. Remarkably, at pH 7 its conductivity is ca. 2000× higher than conventional PANI nanoshells. Similarly, its NIR absorption is enhanced by 2 orders of magnitude, ideal for photothermal imaging and thera...
Funding Information
  • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (U19ES019545)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington
  • Life Sciences Discovery Fund (3292512)
  • National Cancer Institute (R01CA170734)
  • National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB016034)

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