Bundle formation in polyelectrolyte brushes.

Bundle formation of the vertically oriented polyelectrolytes within polyelectrolyte brushes is studied with x-ray reflectivity and grazing-incidence diffraction as a function of grafting density and ion concentration. At 0.8 Molar monomer concentration and without added salt, a bundle consists of two chains and is 50 A long. On the addition of up to 1M CsCl, the aggregation number increases up to 15 whereas the bundle length approaches a limiting value, 20 A. We suggest that the bundle formation is determined by a balance between long-ranged electrostatic repulsion, whose range and amplitude is decreased on salt addition, and short-ranged attraction.