Nanostructured Polysaccharide-Based Surface Coatings: Tailored Morphology and Chemistry

Fabrication and characterization of polysaccharide-based polyelectrolytes surfaces with polyelectrolyte complex nanoparticles (PCN)has been demonstrated in this work. These surface coatings combine PCN with polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEM) to obtain a controlled surface composition and topographical nanoscale features. Biomaterials used in this work are chitosan, heparin, and hyaluronan. Nanostructured surface coatings were characterized on both modified gold substrates and tissue-culture polystyrene surfaces. PCN were adsorbed to oppositely charged PEM, and were also embedded within PEM. The mass adsorbed for each condition was measured by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM-D). The surface morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The chemistry of the coatings was confirmed by both X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and polarization modulation infra-red reflection absorption spectroscopy (PM-IRRAS). Morphologically, we found that PCN were colloidally stable and homogenously distributed when adsorbed on or in the PEM. The size of these particles adsorbed to the charged surfaces has a range of 80-250 nm width and 15-30 nm height.