Department of Chemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, van der Maasweg 9, 2629, HZ, Delft, The Netherlands.
State-Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Meilong Road 130, 200237, Shanghai, P. R. China.
Small. 2019 Feb;15(8):e1804154. doi: 10.1002/smll.201804154. Epub 2019 Jan 30.
Herein, the micropatterning of supramolecular gels with oriented growth direction and controllable spatial dimensions by directing the self-assembly of small molecular gelators is reported. This process is associated with an acid-catalyzed formation of gelators from two soluble precursor molecules. To control the localized formation and self-assembly of gelators, micropatterned poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) brushes are employed to create a local and controllable acidic environment. The results show that the gel formation can be well confined in the catalytic surface plane with dimensions ranging from micro- to centimeter. Furthermore, the gels show a preferential growth along the normal direction of the catalytic surface, and the thickness of the resultant gel patterns can be easily controlled by tuning the grafting density of PAA brushes. This work shows an effective "bottom-up" strategy toward control over the spatial organization of materials and is expected to find promising applications in, e.g., microelectronics, tissue engineering, and biomedicine.
本文报道了一种通过引导小分子凝胶因子的自组装来实现具有定向生长方向和可控制空间尺寸的超分子凝胶的微图案化方法。该过程涉及由两个可溶性前体分子酸催化形成凝胶因子。为了控制凝胶因子的局部形成和自组装，采用微图案化的聚丙烯酸 (PAA) 刷来创建局部且可控的酸性环境。结果表明，凝胶的形成可以很好地限制在催化表面平面内，尺寸从微观到厘米不等。此外，凝胶沿着催化表面的法向方向优先生长，并且通过调节 PAA 刷的接枝密度可以轻松控制所得凝胶图案的厚度。这项工作展示了一种有效的“自下而上”策略来控制材料的空间组织，有望在微电子学、组织工程和生物医学等领域得到应用。
