IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Biomaterials Tuesday Sessions
       Session BI-TuA

Paper BI-TuA3
Water-Uptake of Poly(ethylene glycol)-terminated Self-Assembled Monolayers during Film Formation

Tuesday, October 30, 2001, 2:40 pm, Room 102

Session: Non Fouling Surfaces and Theoretical Concepts
Presenter: J. Fick, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Authors: J. Fick, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
S. Tokumitsu, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
M. Himmelhaus, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
M. Grunze, Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Correspondent: Click to Email
Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) terminated by poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG; MW = 2000 Dalton) formed on polycrystalline gold have proven to provide an interesting model system for the study of grafted PEG chains with different morphologies, such as mushroom, polymer brush, and crystalline-like phase. The desired structure can be obtained simply by varying the immersion time of the substrate in solution, because the adsorbed molecules adopt the respective conformations as a function of coverage. As there is still a controversial discussion about the origin of the unique properties of PEG in terms of protein resistance and the roles that both, morphology of the PEG and bound water molecules might play, we have studied the water-uptake of the PEG-SAMs as a function of surface coverage by optical spectroscopies. The SAMs were adsorbed from solvent mixtures with distinct amounts of water added. We present the dependency of the adsorption kinetics as a function of various parameters, such as polarity, water-content of the solvent, and temperature during adsorption.