Voltage-tunable volume transitions in nanoscale films of poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) surfaces grafted onto gold

Surface grafting of a polymerizable monomer onto Au was used to produce nanometer-scale planar hydrogel films with controllable volume. A self-assembled monolayer of 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid on a planar Au surface was activated through water-soluble carbodiimide and N-hyroxysuccinimide followed by reaction with 2-aminomethacrylate to produce a methacrylate-terminated surface layer, which readily polymerized under UV radiation in the presence of hydroxyethyl methacrylate monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate cross-linker, and a photoinitiator. The reaction steps were characterized by external reflection mode Fourier transform IR spectroscopy. Under controlled UV exposure, thin (3 nm < d < 10 nm) hydrogel films were obtained from 1:1 ethanol/H(2)O. Surface plasmon resonance measurements were used to characterize both the synthesis of the hydrogel and the potential-induced volume changes. The nanometer-scale hydrogels thus produced undergo reproducible changes in thickness, when a potential is applied across the film. Thickness changes increasing with applied potential were obtained for both voltages in the range |V(appl)|