| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Applied Surface Science | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session AS+BI+NS-TuM |
| Session: | Surface Analysis and Related Methods for Biological Materials |
| Presenter: | M.R. Alexander, The University of Nottingham, UK |
| Authors: | M. Taylor, The University of Nottingham, UK A.J. Urquhart, The University of Nottingham, UK D.G. Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology R. Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology M.C. Davies, The University of Nottingham, UK M.R. Alexander, The University of Nottingham, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
There is currently much interest in polymer microarrays in the field of high-throughput materials development.1,2 Although combinatorial material synthesis is relatively advanced, methods for characterising the surface chemical properties of such libraries are less well developed. We report on methods to characterise the surface chemistry and surface energy of 480 polymers on a microarray formed using on-slide copolymer synthesis. We used X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometry and Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry to provide surface chemical information from each spot. Water and diiodomethane contact angle measurements were made from individually dosed picolitre volume droplets to estimate surface energy of each copolymer formulation.3 Such arrays provide extra challenges for characterisation due to the large sample numbers, small sample size and increased data volume. Here, we will focus on the correlations determined between the monomer structures and the surface energy. The information XPS and SIMS can provide on the actual surface chemistry is presented and contrasted to the bulk surface chemistry. We highlight the ability to tune the surface energy using certain polymerised monomer combinations by varying their relative concentrations. This has great utility in controlling the biological response to polymer surfaces.
1 J. A. Hubbell, Nature Biotechnology 2004, 22, 828.
2 D. G. Anderson, S. Levenberg, R. Langer, Nature Biotechnology 2004, 22, 863.
3 Taylor, M.; Urquhart, A. J.; Zelzer, M.; Davies, M. C.; Alexander, M. R., Picolitre water contact angle measurement on polymers. Langmuir Letters (2007, in press).