Self-assembly of homopolymer and copolymers of N-4-hydroxyphenyl-acrylamide with diazoresin via H-bonding attraction

A kind of photoactive multilayer utrathin films has been fabricated via H-bonding attraction from hydroxyphenyl containing polymers as H-donor and diazoresin (DR) as H-acceptor by means of a self-assembly technique. The layer-by-layer deposition of two components is monitored spectrometrically and shows that the UV–VIS absorbance of the film increases linearly both at 250 nm (absorption of benzene nucleus) and at 383 nm (absorption of diazonium group), which indicates that the fabrication proceeds regularly. The nature of H-bonding between layers was verified by the determination of IR spectra of the film fabricated directly on a CaF2 wafer. The stability of the films toward polar solvents increases dramatically after UV irradiation of the films. It was confirmed provisionally that the bond nature between the layers of the film changes from H-bonding to covalent bonding under UV irradiation. The photodecomposition of the –N2+ groups of the film under UV light follows first order reaction kinetics and a mechanism of the photoreaction has been tentatively proposed.