Caractérisation de nanofilms polymériques déposés par plasma froid : stabilité et propriétés mécaniques

Abstract

The current project is inscribed in the research axis on bioactive coatings of Dr. Sophie Lerouge’s Laboratoire de Biomatériaux endovasculaires (LBeV). The aim of our work was to extract mechanical properties of a new plasma polymer called L-PPE :N (developed to enhance healing around stent-graft) and determine the effect of various experimental parameters on the stability behavior of our thin films (hundred nanometer thick coatings). Subsidiary to these goals, we also had in mind to test whether usual methods for characterizing polymers and films were applicable on our cold-plasma deposited material. Properties concerned by our endeavor included Young’s modulus, hardness, storage and loss modulus, resistance to tearing, ultimate strain and aqueous stability under different temperature and pH for films of varying ratio of gases and thicknesses. Apparatus and work hypothesis used to succeed in our characterization work included, but was not limited to: a quartz crystal dissipative microbalance (QCM-D), a nanoindenter, an ellipsometer, and a tensile testing bench specifically designed for microscopic observation. Hypothesis attached to these methods are that each of these will work as intended for the characterization of our material. Furthermore, we also need to consider the properties of our film as constant throughout its volume (surface-wise for QCM-D analysis and thickness-wise for nanoindentation). QCM-D results allowed us to determine the best compromise of deposition gas ratio R=NH3/C2H4 of L-PPE:N for our biomedical application to be 0.75, from a stability and bioactivity point of view. Starting from that information, we submitted ratio 0.75 films to temperature, thickness and pH essays to make sure they could handle every situation we could need to put them through. Nanoindentation essays have helped us finding reduced modulus and hardness of 8.0 and 0.4 GPa for the 2 μm coating and 10.4 and 0.5 GPa for the 200 nm film, respectively. These values are greater than other biomaterials currently in use, and similar to other cold plasma materials. Further improvements to this work include, at this point of the L-PPE:N development, to start studying the impact of conventional sterilization methods on the stability, mechanical and biological properties of our film, and to submit our coating to a testing bench designed specifically to mimic the insertion and deployment of a stent-graft, in order to verify the structural integrity of the film afterwards.

Date	10 May 2012
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Sophie Lerouge (Supervisor)