Cécile Roy

Growth Mechanism of Confined Polyelectrolyte Multilayers in Nanoporous Templates.

We investigate the mechanism of polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) assembly in nanoporous templates with a view to synthesizing nanotubes or nanowires under optimal conditions. For this purpose, we focus on the effect of parameters related to the geometrical constraints (pore diameter), the size of the macromolecules (their molar mass and the ionic strength), and the interaction between the pore walls and the adsorbed chains (modulated by the ionic strength). Our results reveal the existence of two regimes in the mechanism of PEM growth: (i) the first regime is comparable to that observed on flat substrates, including the influence of ionic strength and (ii) the second regime, which is slower in terms of kinetics, results from the interconnection established between polyelectrolyte chains across the pores and leads to the formation of a dense gel. As a consequence, the diffusion of polyelectrolytes in nanopores becomes the controlling factor of PEM growth in this second regime. The dense gel, owing to its peculiar structure, enhances the formation of nanowires or of partially occluded nanotubes in some cases, depending on initial pore dimensions.

Synthesis of Collagen Nanotubes with Highly Regular Dimensions through Membrane-Templated Layer-by-Layer Assembly

Nanotubes made from a fibrillar protein, namely, collagen, were fabricated by a template-based method combined with layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition. The ability to incorporate collagen in LbL multilayered film was first demonstrated by in situ quartz crystal microbalance and ex situ ellipsometry on a flat model substrate, using poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS) as polyanion. Collagen-based nanotubes were then fabricated by alternately immersing a polycarbonate membrane, used as template, in PSS and collagen aqueous solutions. Direct evidence for nanotube formation was obtained by dissolving the membrane and imaging the liberated (PSS/collagen)(n) nanostructures by scanning electron microscopy and by transmission electron microscopy. The proposed strategy constitutes a practical alternative to electrospinning as it allows a very good control over the dimensions (outside and inside diameters and length) of the resulting nanotubes. Besides their fundamental interest, collagen-based nanotubes are useful nano-objects for the creation of new nanostructured biomaterials with numerous potential applications in the biomedical field.