AVS 50th International Symposium
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS-TuP

Paper SS-TuP18
The Interaction of Water with Oligo(Ethylene Glycol)-Terminated Self-Assembled Monolayers on Gold and Silver Investigated by IR and Vibrational Sum-Frequency Spectroscopy

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 5:30 pm, Room Hall A-C

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: R.-Y. Wang, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Authors: R.-Y. Wang, University of Heidelberg, Germany
M. Himmelhaus, University of Heidelberg, Germany
J. Fick, University of Heidelberg, Germany
S. Herrwerth, University of Heidelberg, Germany
W. Eck, University of Heidelberg, Germany
M. Grunze, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Correspondent: Click to Email
Oligo(ethylene glycol)-terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have been the topic of intense research over the last years, due their unique protein repulsion properties.@footnote 1,2@ Recently, in particular, the structure of the films in contact to aqueous solutions has been in the focus of interest.@footnote 3,4@ In the present study, we used infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS) and vibrational sum-frequency spectroscopy (VSF) to investigate water-induced structural changes in methyl (1-mercaptoundec-11-yl) hexa (ethylene glycol)- terminated alkanethiol (EG6OMe) monolayers self-assembled on gold and silver. The spectra were recorded right after preparation of the films and after their exposure to water. In the case of gold as a substrate, the layers were also investigated during water contact. The spectra show that water causes pronounced disorder in the EG6OMe monolayers, which is only partially reversible after drying of the films under vacuum conditions. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@ K. L. Prime and G. M. Whitesides, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 115, 10714,1993@footnote 2@P. Harder, M. Grunze, R. Dahint, G. M. Whitesides, and P.E. Laibinis, J. Phys. Chem. B102, 426-436, 1998 @footnote 3@M. Zolk, F. Eisert, J. Pipper, S. Herrwerth, W. Eck, M. Buck, and M. Grunze, Langmuir, 16,5849-5852,2000@footnote 4@D. Schwendel, T. Hayashi, R. Dahint, A. Pertsin, M. Grunze, R. Steitz, F. Schreiber, Langmuir 19, 2284, 2003.