Novel Hybrid Alumochitin Thin Films Grown by Molecular Layer Deposition to Mimick Chitin´s Functionality.

This work highlights a novel method to prepare conformal ultrathin films of chitin and hybrid chitin-based biomaterials from the gas phase by Molecular Layer Deposition (MLD) technique. MLD is a thin film grow technique, where the structure is built through sequential self-terminating gas–solid reactions. As precursors for both MLD process we are using the sugar-type molecule N-acetyl-D-mannosamine (ManNAc) and coupling it with the surface using thionyl chloride vapors and Trimethylaluminum (TMA) for chitin and alumochitin MLD consequently. ATR-FTIR, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Solid-state NMR (ssNMR), High resolution TEM (HRTEM) and Energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDXS) analysis were performed to examine the obtained MLD films. The MLD nature of the growth of the films obtained using TMA and ManNAc was examined in situ by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) experiments.