In the present thesis different classes of nanomaterials based on di-block copolymers (BCPs) have been studied, with the purpose to design, characterize and fabricate functional nanostructures to be used as active elements in selective sensing and/or biosensing devices with high sensitivity.
The work has been mainly focused on the creation of two classes of BCP based materials: nanocomposite materials, characterized by the selective inclusion of functional nanoparticles (NPs) in specific BCP nanodomanins, and nanoporous materials able to act as ideal support for the physical immobilization of specific biomolecules. Also, an explorative study regarding the use of BCPs as additives in photopolymerizable formulations has been conducted.
The spontaneous self-assembly of BCPs has been used to prepare a large number of tailor-made nanostructured materials, that can be used as nanoscopic device components, templates or active layers in biosensors. The obtained results have confirmed that the self-organization of block copolymers offers a wide variety of methods for structuring and functionalizing materials at nanometric length scale. These methods that could overcome several of the intrinsic limitations of current top-down fabrication technologies
