The overall goal of this thesis was to exploit the versatility of the polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) platform to consider bacteria‐substrata interactions by varying multilayer assembly and post‐assembly conditions. We developed multiple PEM systems to probe the ability of substrata to resist bacteria attachment or act as contact‐killing antimicrobials. In the first study, by varying the pH ...

We present a novel approach to probe elastic properties of polyelectrolyte multilayer microcapsules. The method is based on measurements of the capsule load-deformation curves with the atomic force microscope. The experiment suggests that at low applied load deformations of the capsule shell are elastic. Using elastic theory of membranes we relate force, deformation, elastic moduli, and charact...

Polyelectrolyte multilayered (PEM) films created by an aqueous-based layer-by-layer assembly technique have been widely studied in the past decade. Owing to the simple, versatile and yet well-controlled nature of this technique, many potential applications of these thin films have also been proposed and explored. This thesis presents a recent work in fabricating nanoporous PEM films with superh...

In this study, polyelectrolyte multilayers were fabricated on a polystyrene (PS) plate using a Layer-by-Layer (LbL) self-assembly technique. The resulting functional platform showed improved performance compared with conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) systems. Poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) were used as cationic and anionic polyele...

Using electrostatic layer-by-layer self-assembly (ELSA), the formation of multilayers with polyelectrolytes and nanoscopic polyoxometalate (POM) clusters of different sizes and charges is investigated. The multilayers are characterized by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, optical ellipsometry, cyclic voltammetry, and atomic force microscopy. In all cases, it is possible to find experimental condi...

Polymer coatings are frequently utilized to control and modify substrate properties. The performance of the coatings is often determined by the first polymer layers between the substrate and the bulk polymer material, which are termed interphase. Standard methods have failed to completely characterize this interphase, because its properties change significantly over a few nanometers. Here we de...