A Facile Method to Prepare Molecularly Imprinted Layer-by-Layer Nanostructured Multilayers Using Postinfiltration and a Subsequent Photo-Cross-Linking Strategy

In this paper, we have demonstrated a facile strategy to prepare molecularly imprinted layer-by-layer nanostructured films. This strategy has circumvented the requirement of using photocross-linkable polymers, which suffered from tedious synthetic processes in the construction of surface molecular imprinting in layer-by-layer (SMI-LbL) devices. The described SMI-LbL device was constructed by employing the traditional construction procedures of LbL systems, followed by the postinfiltration of bifunctional photosensitive cross-linking agent 4,4'-diazostilbene-2,2'-disulfonic acid disodium salt into the prepared multilayers, and subsequent photocross-linking. A robust SMI-LbL device with high fatigue-resistance was achieved. The preparation conditions have been optimized to achieve repeated unloading and rebinding of the targeting molecule with high fidelity. The combination of templating and cross-linking is the core factor to achieve high fidelity and high efficiency of the SMI-LbL device.