LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, we demonstrate a one-pot method to prepare the poly(methacrylic acid-co-acrylamide) film on silicon surface by the simultaneous polymer grafting and hydrolysis of the acrylonitrile. The surface morphology, grafting density, chemical structures, grafting ratio and the hydrolysis process were studied to explore the film growth. The thickness were linearly increasing in the grafting process, which indicated the one-pot grafting process was active and controllable. During the grafting process, cyano groups were totally hydrolysed to amide groups under the catalysis of hydrogen ions. This simple grafting method overcomes the grafting difficulty of acrylamide by diazonium salt, which may be protonated in acidic solution. Besides, this method may also be utilized to graft high-density copolymer films containing polyacrylamide chains onto a range of semiconductor and metal surfaces by diazonium salt chemistry.