Strasbourgʹs SOFFT team—Soft functional systems self-assembled from perfluoroalkylated molecular components

The SOFFT (Systèmes Organisés Fluorés Fonctionnels à Finalités Thérapeutiques) team is engaged in the design, building, characterization and assessment of highly fluorinated functional self-assembled molecular systems (F-SAMS, i.e. fluorinated soft matter). Therefore, it synthesizes dedicated fluorinated building blocks and exploits the specific properties of highly fluorinated chains and components (“hyper”hydrophobicity, lipophobicity, volume, rigidity, surface properties, etc.) to drive self-assembly. The systems investigated include interfacial films and membranes, 2D arrays of surface micelles, composite multilayered films, fluorinated vesicles and tubules, diverse types of emulsions, microbubbles and decorated microbubbles, for which preparation and characterization techniques have been developed. Fluorinated components are used to modify and control phospholipid film and membrane behavior, stabilize and control emulsion and microbubble characteristics, generate micro- and nanocompartments, useful as templates for polymerization or for confinement. Key findings include formation on water and solid supports of surface hemimicelles that provide nanometer-size surface patterns; stacking of self-assembled hemimicelles; reversible vertical phase segregation in surface films; exploration of 2D/3D transitions in surface films; obtaining of facetted fluid vesicles; improved emulsion and bubble stabilization and particle control; determination of the mechanism of emulsion stabilization by (F-alkyl)alkyl diblocks; characterization of a co-surfactant effect for non-polar molecules; obtaining of narrowly sized populations of stable microbubbles; and correlation of bubble size and stability with wall and internal phase components. Targeted applications include lung surfactant replacement preparations; adhesion control of cells capable of insulin production; parenteral oxygen delivery and pulmonary drug delivery; and tools for biomedical research. Multiscale objects are currently being investigated, such as microbubbles decorated with magnetic particles destined for multimodal diagnostic imaging and, in materials science, for their non-linear magnetic, optical and magneto-optic properties.