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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Layer-by-Layer Adsorption: The Solid/Liquid-Interface as a Template for the Controlled Growth of Well-Defined Nanostructures of Polyelectrolytes, Proteins, DNA and Polynucleotides

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description

This report describes the construction of ultrathin films whose structure can be tailored on the molecular scale. The resulting supramolecular film architectures may include functional biological macromolecules such as proteins or polynucleotides. The average distances of two functional layers can be adjusted on the nanometer scale (from less than lnm to several tens of nanometers), with a precision of approximately 0.1 nm. This control is achieved by varying the number and the thickness of the polyelectrolyte interlayers and requires the capability of steering each adsorption step with high accuracy. A crucial factor is the fabrication and manipulation of the film surface at each adsorption step, which acts as the template for the adsorption of every next layer. There are two aspects which are relevant in relation to prebiotic chemistry, one is the development of a molecular understanding of adsorption at an interface (which is one way to provide for concentration gradients) the other is the one-dimensional assembly of biological molecular machinery with high precision on the nanometer scale.