AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Surface Science Thursday Sessions
       Session SS2+EM-ThM

Paper SS2+EM-ThM8
In-situ Studies of Protein Resistance of Oligo(Ethylene Glycol) Self-Assembled Monolayers

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 10:20 am, Room 2004

Session: Self-Assembled Monolayers
Presenter: M. Skoda, Oxford University, UK
Authors: M. Skoda, Oxford University, UK
F. Schreiber, Universit@um a@t T@um u@bingen, Germany
J. Willis, Oxford University, UK
R. Jacobs, Oxford University, UK
R. Dahint, University of Heidelberg, Germany
M. Grunze, University of Heidelberg, Germany
M. Wolff, ESRF, France
Correspondent: Click to Email
The structure of the interface between organic matter, such as self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), and water is currently subject of intensive studies due to its importance for the understanding of surface-solvent and surface-surface interactions.@footnote 1,2@ Our focus here are OEG-terminated SAMs which are used to make surfaces resistant to protein adsorption. We report our recent results from a combined Neutron Reflectivity (NR) and Polarisation Modulated (PM) Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) study. The PM technique enables us to address the local interaction of water with OEG groups, and is ideally complementary to NR. Our data suggest a rather strong interaction of water molecules with the EG section of the SAM, potentially the penetration of water into the SAM. Also, the measurements reveal changes in the structure of water and the protein solution in the vicinity of the SAM upon changes in temperature. Our combined NR and IR investigation helps to shed light on the problem of the subtle interactions at the organic solid-liquid interface. The benefit of using IR along with NR is also that we are more sensitive to the defect structure of the organic interface, which has an impact on the interaction with water. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@F. Schreiber, J. Phys.: Cond. Matter 16 (2004) R881 @footnote 2@D. Schwendel et al., Langmuir 19 (2003) 2284