Tethered lipid bilayers (tBLMs) were obtained by the fusion of liposomes from diphytanoylphosphatidylcholine (DPhyPC) with self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of a newly designed archaea analogue thiolipid,
2,3-di-O-phytanyl-sn-glycerol-1-tetraethylene glycol-d,l-α-lipoic acid ester (DPTL) on template stripped
gold (TSG) films from silicon wafer as a template. SAMs, as characterized by reflection absorption infrared
spectroscopy (RAIRS), show a mixture of different conformations of the tetraethylene segment in air,
which appears to rearrange into the fully extended conformation when the SAM is immersed into an
aqueous electrolyte solution, as deduced from thickness measurements by surface plasmon resonance
spectroscopy (SPR). The fusion of liposomes was followed by SPR, quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and
fluorescence microscopy. Highly resistive tBLMs were obtained, as demonstrated by electrochemical
impedance spectroscopy (EIS) results, which are equivalent to those for the BLM. This large resistivity
is attributed to the ultraflat surface of TSG, as well as to the distinctive architecture of the newly designed
molecule. The roughness of the TSG obtained from mica and silicon wafer as template was determined
by AFM and compared to that of a Au(111) surface on mica. The largest roughness features of TSG are
shown to be 0.5−1 nm, which is small compared to the vertical dimension of the DPTL molecules. This
is regarded to be crucial for the self-assembly process, particularly in the case of amphiphilic molecules.
In this paper, we report on in situ optical/electrochemical investigations using a combination of surface
plasmon resonance spectroscopy and electrochemistry in order to determine the complex dielectric constants
of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) thin films. The PEDOT films were deposited by in situ
electropolymerization. The film thickness was monitored by a quartz crystal microbalance. In the
electrochemical surface plasmon resonance (EC-SPR) measurements, three wavelengths corresponding
to interband and intraband electronic transition regions were used in order to investigate electrochromic
properties. The optical conductivity was also determined by EC-SPR measurement with a near-infrared
laser wavelength which corresponds to the region outside the anomalous dispersion.
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