Thickness Enhancement of Layer-by-Layer Multilayered Films Using Counter Polyelectrolyte-Induced Colloidal Particles

The efficient formation of layer-by-layer (LbL) multilayered films is important for wide range applications and industrial productions especially when fabricating multilayered films with expensive materials. It was serendipitously discovered that the thickness of LbL film increased when omitting rinsing steps between the deposition steps. Based on this discovery, we developed an efficient method for systematically increasing the thickness of LbL films by adding a small amount of counter polyelectrolytes as additives in the polyelectrolytes solutions. It was found that the increased thickness is caused by colloidal particles induced by the aggregation of the polyelectrolytes.