Nanopatterned Monolayers of Bioinspired, Sequence-Defined Polypeptoid Brushes for Semiconductor/Bio Interfaces

The ability to control and manipulate semiconductor/bio interfaces is essential to enable biological nanofabrication pathways and new bioelectronic devices. Traditional surface functionalization methods, like self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), provide limited customization for these interfaces. Polymer brushes offer a wider range of chemistries, but choices that maintain compatibility with both lithographic patterning and biological systems are scarce. Here we developed a class of bioinspired, sequence-defined polymers, i.e., polypeptoids, as tailored polymer brushes for surface modification of semiconductor substrates. Polypeptoids featuring a terminal hydroxyl (–OH) group are designed and synthesized for efficient melt grafting onto the native oxide layer of Si substrates, forming ultrathin (~1 nm) monolayers. By programming monomer chemistry, our polypeptoid brush platform offers versatile surface modification, including adjustments to surface energy, passivation, preferential biomolecule attachment, and specific biomolecule binding. Importantly, the polypeptoid brush monolayers remain compatible with electron-beam lithographic patterning and retain their chemical characteristics even under harsh lithographic conditions. Electron-beam lithography is used over polypeptoid brushes to generate highly precise, binary nanoscale patterns with localized functionality for the selective immobilization (or passivation) of biomacromolecules such as DNA origami or streptavidin onto addressable arrays. This surface modification strategy with bioinspired, sequence-defined polypeptoid brushes enables monomer-level control over surface properties with a large parameter space of monomer chemistry and sequence, and therefore is a highly versatile platform to precisely engineer semiconductor/bio interfaces for bioelectronics applications.