• Proceedings of the SCSK Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.501-519
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• 2003

Silk Sericin(SS) is a natural protein extracted from cocoon of bombix mori and shows moisturizing effect to the skin due to a number of hydroxyl groups in the structure. But its application to cosmetics is limited due to its poor solubility in water. In order to solve this drawback and expand its application to cosmetics, polyethyleneglycol(PEG) was conjugated with sericin by reacting activated polyethyleneglycol(ActPEG). Reaction site of sericin is tyrosine residue, which was determined by using $^1$H-NMR. Random coil structure of sericin was transformed to beta-sheet structure by conjugating polyethyleneglycol. It was confirmed that melting point of sericin-PEG conjugate was lowered compared to that of each sericin and PEG due to the interaction between sericin and PEG in crystalline structure. Self-assembled sericin-PEG nanoparticle was obtained by dialyzing with alcohol solution of sericin-PEG conjugate against water. The particle is spherical and has 200-400nm of size. The moisturizing ability of sericin-PEG nanoparticle was much higher than that of sericin itself. Incorporation of vitamin A into sericin-PEG nanoparticle was carried out by diafiltration method. The content of incorporated Vitamin A in sericin-PEG nanoparticle was 8.9 wt％. Releasing behaviour of vitamin A incorporated into nanoparticle was tested in phosphate buffer, pH 7.4 at 37$^{\circ}C$. and half-life of Vitamin A release was 43hrs. Sericin-PEG nanoparticle exhibited higher moisturing effect than sericin itself and distilled water, respectively. No toxicity and irritation were observed in animal tests. It can be expected that the self-assembled sericin-PEG nanoparticle can be developed for cosmetics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.24-25
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• 2011

Molecular self-assembly has several advantages over other nanofabrication methods. Molecular building blocks ensure ultrafine pattern precision, parallel structure formation allows for mass production and a variety of three-dimensional structures are available for fabricating complex structures. Nevertheless, the molecular interaction for self-assembly generally relies on weak forces such as van der Waals force, hydrogen bonding, or hydrophobic interaction. Due to the weak interaction, the structure formation is usually slow and the degree of ordering is low in a self-assembled structure. To promote self-assembly, directed assembly methods employing prepatterned substrates or external fields have been developed and gathered a great deal of technological attention as a next generation nanofabrication process. In this presentation a variety of directed assembly methods for soft nanomaterials including block copolymers, peptides and carbon nanomaterials will be introduced. Block copolymers are representative self-assembling materials extensively utilized in nanofabrication. In contrast to colloid assembly or anodized metal oxides, various shapes of nanostructures, including lines or interconnected networks, can be generated with a precise tunability over their shape and size. Applying prepatterned substrates$^{1,2}$ or introducing thickness modulation$^3$ to block copolymer thin films allowed for the control over the orientational and positional orderings of self-assembled structures. The nanofabrication processes for metals, semiconductors$^4$, carbon nanotubes$^{5,6}$, and graphene$^{6,7}$ templating block copolymer self-assembly will be presented.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.441-444
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• 2009

The formation and structure of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) by the adsorption of acetyl-protected octylthioacetate (OTA) on Au(111) in a catalytic tetrabutylammonium cyanide (TBACN) solution were examined by means of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and cyclic voltammetry (CV). Molecular-scale STM imaging revealed that OTA molecules on Au(111) in a pure solvent form disordered SAMs, whereas they form well-ordered SAMs showing a c(4 × 2) structure in a catalytic TBACN solution. XPS and CV measurements also revealed that OTA SAMs on Au(111) formed in a TBACN solution have a stronger chemisorbed peak in the S 2p region at 162 eV and a higher blocking effect compared to OTA SAMs formed in a pure solvent. In this study, we clearly demonstrate that TBACN can be used as an effective deprotecting reagent for obtaining well-ordered SAMs of thioacetyl-protected molecules on gold.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.1383-1387
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• 2013

The surface structure and electrochemical behavior of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) prepared from benzenethiol (BT), cyclohexanethiol (CHT), and cyclopentanethiol (CPT) on Au(111) surface were examined by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) to understand the influence of thiol molecular backbone structure on the formation and reductive desorption behavior of SAMs. STM imaging showed that BT and CPT SAMs on Au(111) surface formed at room temperature were mainly composed of disordered domains, whereas CHT SAMs were composed of well-ordered domains with three orientations. From these STM results, we suggest that molecule-substrate interaction is a key parameter for determining the structural order and disorder of simple aromatic and alicyclic thiol SAMs on Au(111). In addition, the reductive desorption peak potential for BT SAMs with aromatic rings was observed at a less negative potential of -566 mV compared to CHT SAMs (-779 mV) or CPT SAMs (-775 mV) with aliphatic cyclic rings. This reductive desorption behavior for BT SAMs is due to the presence of p-orbitals on the aromatic rings, which promote facile electron transfer from the Au electrode to BT as compared to CHT and CPT. We also confirmed that the reductive desorption behavior for simple alicyclic thiol SAMs such as CHT and CPT SAMs on Au electrodes was not significantly influenced by the degree of structural order.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.1755-1759
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• 2009

Surface structure and molecular orientation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) formed by the spontaneous adsorption of tetrahydrothiophene (THT) and thiophene (TP) on Au(111) were investigated by means of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and carbon K-edge near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. STM imaging revealed that THT SAMs have a commensurate (3 ${\times}\;2\sqrt[]{3}$) structure containing structural defects in ordered domains, whereas TP SAMs are composed of randomly adsorbed domains and paired molecular row domains that can be described as an incommensurate packing structure. The NEXAFS spectroscopy study showed that the average tilt angle of the aliphatic THT ring and $\pi$-conjugated TP ring in the SAMs were calculated to be about $30^o\;and\;40^o$, respectively, from the surface normal. It was also observed that the $\pi$* transition peak in the NEXAFS spectrum of the TP SAMs is very weak, suggesting that a strong interaction between $\pi$-electrons and the Au surface arises during the self-assembly of TP molecules. In this study, we have clearly demonstrated that the surface structure and adsorption orientation of organic SAMs on Au(111) are strongly influenced by whether the cyclic ring is saturated or unsaturated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.150.2-150.2
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• 2013

We elucidate the mechanism of the self-assembled organic layer formation at the organic/metal interface of hexaaza-triphenylene-hexacarbonitrile (HATCN)/Au(111) by first-principles calculations and Lowtemperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM). In this work, we used HATCN to deposit organic material which is well known as an efficient OLED charge generation material. Low-temperature STM measurements revealed that self-assembled hexagonal porous structure is formed at terraces of Au(111). We also found that the hexagonal porous structure has chirality and forms only small (<1000 $nm^2$) phaseseparated chiral domains that can easily change their chiral phase in subsequence STM images at 80 K. To explain the mechanism of these observation, we calculated the molecular-molecular and molecule-surface interaction energies by using density functional theory method. We found that the change of their chiral phase resulted from the competition between the two energies. These results have not only verified our experimental observations, but also revealed the delicate balance between different interactions that caused the self-assembed structures at the surface.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2479-2480
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• 2012

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.3790-3794
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• 2013

Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the structure and stability of a nanoscale self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of alkanethiol on a gold (111) surface. The tilt angle and orientational order of the alkyl chains in the SAM island were examined by systematically varying the size of the island. The chain length dependence of the SAM island was examined by considering alkanethiols containing 12, 16, 20, and 24 carbon atoms. The minimum diameter of SAM islands made from 1-tetracosanethiol, 1-ecosanethiol, 1-hexadecanethiol and 1-dodecanethiol were 2.29, 1.9, 4.7 and 4.76 nm, respectively. These set the ultimate resolution that can be patterned by soft nanolithography. As the length of alkanethiol increases, the SAM islands became more ordered in both orientation and conformation of the alkyl chains.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.403-406
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• 2006

The surface structure and electrochemical behavior of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) formed by aromatic thiols on Au(111) were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and cyclic voltammetry. Benzenethiol (BT) forms disordered phases on Au(111) which are composed of many bright domains, while benzyl mercaptan (BM), with a methylene unit between the aromatic group and sulfur atom, forms twodimensional ordered SAMs on Au(111). In addition, two phase-separated domains consisting of disordered and ordered phases were observed in binary SAMs formed from a 1 : 1 mixed ethanol solution of BT and BM. From STM and CV measurements, we found that the blocking efficiency of aromatic thiol SAMs coated on an Au(111) electrode for an electron transfer reaction decreases as the structural order of the SAMs increases. Molecular-scale STM and CV results obtained here will be very useful in designing functional SAMs for further applications, such as the improvement of corrosion passivation of Au(111) on an aromatic thiolmodified Au(111) surface.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.2445-2448
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• 2007

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were formed by adsorption of thioacetyl-terminated tolanethioacetate (TTA) on Au(111) in a 0.5-mM ethanol solution after one day immersion at room temperature. Molecular-scale STM imaging revealed that the TTA SAMs were composed of two mixed phases; an ordered phase with small domains describing a ( × 2 )R30° structure and a disordered phase. Interestingly, after annealing the precovered TTA SAMs on Au(111) at 90 °C for 1 h, the small ordered domains grew unidirectionally, resulting in the formation of unique rod-like domains, which were assigned a ( × 2 )R7° structure. These results will be very useful in understanding the formation and thermal behavior of TTA SAMs on gold surfaces.