On decoration of biomolecular scaffolds with a conjugated polyelectrolyte

Biotemplating is the art of using a biological structure as a scaffold which is decorated with a functional material. In this fashion the structures will gain new functionalities and biotemplating offers a simple route of mass-producing mesoscopic material with new interesting properties. Biological structures are abundant and come in a great variety of elaborate and due to their natural origin they could be more suitable for interaction with biological systems than wholly synthetic materials. Conducting polymers are a novel class of material which was developed just 40 years ago and are well suited for interaction with biological material due to their organic composition. Furthermore the electronic properties of the conducting polymers can be tuned giving rise to dynamic control of the behavior of the material. Self-assembly processes are interesting since they do not require complicated or energy demanding processing conditions. This is particularly important as most biological materials are unstable at elevated temperatures or harsh environments. The main aim of this thesis is to show the possibility of using self-assembly to decorate a conducting polymer onto various biotemplates. Due to the intrinsic variety in charge, size and structure between the available natural scaffolds it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a universal method. In this thesis we show how biotemplating can be used to create new hybrid materials by self-assembling a conducting polymer with biological structures based on DNA, protein, lipids and cellulose, and in this fashion create material with novel optical and electronic properties