Engineered nanostructured thin films for functional coatings and self powered devices

Abstract

Functional thin films have attracted immense scientific interest due to their potential application in diverse fields such as catalysis, memory devices, sensors, optics, energy, membranes and biomedicine. This thesis focuses on designing highly stable thin films and coatings for application in UV protection, antibacterial properties and flow-based detection of analytes. In brief, our first approach demonstrates the fabrication of mussel-inspired UV protective organic coatings via LbL assembly using polydopamine (PDA). PDA in the nanocomposite film provides substrate independence, and the films are generated conformally on varied substrates such as cotton and poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and shown to provide UV protection to organic electronics. In another approach, antibacterial nanocoating is fabricated by incorporating newly synthesized diiodosalicylideneimine boron difluoride functionalized polyethyleneimine into multilayer polymeric films. Finally, a self-powered LOC (Lab-on-achip) device is developed utilizing enzyme thin films which can trigger autonomous fluid flow in presence of enzyme specific substrate and used in non-spectrometerical detection of toxic metals (such as Hg2+) and organophosphorus pesticides (methamidophos and monocrotophos) which acts as inhibitors to various enzymes by maneuvering fluid flow via enzyme inhibition. newline