CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SURFACE MORPHOLOGY OF ORGANIC AND INORGANIC HYBRID THIN FILMS - A FIRST STEP TO FABRICATE AN ARTIFICIAL CELL MEMBRANE

摘要

As the first step to fabricate an artificial cell membrane (ACM), we characterized the surface morphology of multi-layered hybrid thin films consisting of an organic bilayer of all-trans-retinoic acid or L-(α)-phosphatidylcholine produced using the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique, and a silver metal thin film fabricated using Quantum Dot Physical Deposition (QDPD) method, which allows us to produce such silver films at room temperature on organic or biological thin films such as an LB bilayer. The membrane potential of an ACM can be emulated with the hybrid structure of O-M-O (Organic-Metal-Organic), and the permeability of ions passing through an ACM is dependent on the structure of each layer. The major objective of this report was to investigate the latter; the relationship between the permeability and the surface morphology of and ACM. The molecular arrangement was observed and characterized with several kinds of nano-scale measurement like STM following the fabrication of permeable multi-layered hybrid thin films as a first step towards ACM fabrication.