Ultrathin polymer films on gold supports: LB-transfer versus self assembly

Lipopolymers comprised of an N-isopropyl acrylamide backbone modified with Lipid side chains and a disulfide moiety can be used for the preparation of thin films by chemisorption from solution and by LB-transfer as well. The resulting thin polymer layers were characterized using surface plasmon resonance, contact angle measurements, and grazing incidence FTIR spectroscopy. With both methods thin polymer films of a comparable thickness can be prepared (about 20 Angstrom). But while chemisorption is the easier technique, LB-transfer has the advantage that a transfer at different surface areas allows an additional variation of the film thickness and the contact angle.