Self‐Repair and Patterning of 2D Membrane‐Like Peptoid Materials

Due to their unique physical and chemical properties, 2D materials have attracted intense interest for applications in filtration, sensing, nanoelectronics, and biomedical devices. Peptoids are a class of biomimetic sequence‐defined polymers for which certain amphiphillic sequences self‐assemble into 2D crystalline materials with properties that mimic those of cell membranes. In this study the ability of these membrane‐like materials to self‐repair following damage on a range of substrates is explored. In situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to both create damage and image the subsequent repair process. Damage is induced by using the AFM to scribe peptoid‐free patterns within a preassembled membrane. The results show here that, upon introduction of a peptoid‐containing solution, for a suitable range of pH conditions, the damage is eliminated through assembly of the peptoids at the newly created edges, regardless of whether the substrates are negatively or positively charged and even in the absence of an underlying surface. The rate of the advancing edge depends on the edge orientation, the pH, and the composition of the substrate. Moreover, if the solution contains a second peptoid having an identical sequence in the hydrophobic block, repair of the defects results in nanoscale patterns of the new peptoid, even if the hydrophilic regions are distinct. Consequently, this ability to self‐repair can be exploited to create nm‐sized patterns of distinct functional groups within a single coherent membrane.