Chemical vapor deposition of carbohydrate-based polymers: a proof of concept study

The aim of this work is to investigate if vinyl-modified carbohydrate compounds are suitable monomers for thin film polymerization via chemical vapor deposition in a proof-of-concept study. Synthetic carbohydrate-based polymers are explored as biodegradable, biocompatible, and biorenewable materials. A thin film of synthetic polymers bearing sugar residues can also offer a good surface for cell attachment, and thus might be applied in biomaterials and tissue engineering. The possibility of having such thin film deposited from the vapor phase would ease the implementation in complex device architectures. For a proof-of-concept study, sugar vinyl compound monomers are synthesized starting from methyl α-d-glucopyranoside and polymerized by initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) leading to a thin polymer layer on a Si-substrate. Thus, a successful vapor polymerization of the sugar compounds could be demonstrated. Infrared spectroscopy shows that no unwanted crosslinking reactions take place during the vapor deposition. The solubility of the polymers in water was observed in situ by spectroscopic ellipsometry. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].