| In this work, we improved the vapor deposition-polymerization (VDP) technique by re-designing a new vacuum chamber, and adding two heating plates to control the temperatures of the substrate and monomer evaporation. By optimizing the reaction parameters such as monomer amount, substrate temperature and reaction time, various polypeptides with sufficiently high molecular weight have been successfully grafted onto the solid substrates. The combination of VPD with photolithography has fabricated micro-patterned polypeptides, with geometry patternable in both lateral and vertical directions.; Next, the conformations of the surface-grafted polypeptides were systematically examined. New ways have been found to switch their conformations between α-helix and β-sheet, or between right-handed helix and left-handed helix. Two important ionic polypeptides, poly(L-glutamic acid) (PLGA) and poly(L-lysine) (PLL) were the focuses of this work. The conformational transitions of surface-grafted PLGA and PLL were successfully induced by pH, surfactants and ions. In addition, a surface-grafted PLGA-block-PLL copolypeptide was studied. Their unexpected pH-responsiveness was explained by the β-sheet formation between the PLGA and PLL blocks.; The orientation of the surface-grafted α-helical poly(γ-benzyl L-glutamate) (PBLG) was greatly improved by a novel “solvent quenching” method, which involves treating the film sequentially with a good solvent and a poor solvent. The average tilt angle of the PBLG rods changed from 49° to 3° by applying this “quenching”.; Finally, a surface-grafted PLL film was used as the template to mimic the biosilicification. Silica was spontaneously synthesized from tetraethoxysilane inside the PLL film at room temperature and at neutral pH. |
