Probing temperature responsivity of microgels and its interplay with a solid surface by super-resolution microscopy and numerical simulations

An interesting feature of this method is the possibility of monitoring microgel response to temperature changes in situ. However, when performing advanced microscopy experiments, interactions between the particle and the environment can be important.

Often microgels are deposited on a substrate, since they have to remain still for several minutes during the experiment. In the publication associated with this data, we use direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and advanced coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate how individual microgels anchored on hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces undergo their volume phase transition with temperature.