Noble metal nanoparticles deposited on self-assembled monolayers by pulsed laser deposition show coulomb blockade at room temperature.

Nanometer-sized noble-metal clusters are fabricated on top of alkylthiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on annealed gold by pulsed laser deposition at elevated pressures. The size distribution of the clusters depends on the metal and on the pressure during the deposition. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and conductive probe atomic force microscopy (CP-AFM) showed that the metal clusters are insulated from the substrate on top of the SAM.

Supramolecular layer-by-layer assembly: alternating adsorptions of guest- and host-functionalized molecules and particles using multivalent supramolecular interactions.

The stepwise construction of a novel kind of self-assembled organic/inorganic multilayers based on multivalent supramolecular interactions between guest-functionalized dendrimers and host-modified gold nanoparticles has been developed, yielding supramolecular layer-by-layer assembly. The deposition process was monitored by surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy. Further characterization of the multilayer films was performed by means of UV/vis absorption spectroscopy, which showed a linear increase in absorption with the number of bilayers.

Supramolecular microcontact printing and dip-pen nanolithography on molecular printboards.

The transfer of functional molecules onto self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) by means of soft and scanning-probe lithographic techniques-microcontact printing (muCP) and dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), respectively-and the stability of the molecular patterns during competitive rinsing conditions were examined. A series of guests with different valencies were transferred onto beta-cyclodextrin- (beta-CD-) terminated SAMs and onto reference hydroxy-terminated SAMs. Although physical contact was sufficient to generate patterns on both types of SAMs, only molecular patterns of multivalent guests transferred onto the beta-CD SAMs were stable under the rinsing conditions that caused the removal of the same guests from the reference SAMs.

Micro- and nanofabrication of robust reactive arrays based on the covalent coupling of dendrimers to activated monolayers.

We report on methods to fabricate robust micro- and nanopatterned platforms, comprising high functional group densities and quasi three-dimensional structures, for possible applications in biochip array technologies. For this purpose, amine-terminated poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers were immobilized via amide linkage formation on 11,11'-dithiobis(N-hydroxysuccinimidylundecanoate) (NHS-C10) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold surfaces. The coupling reaction and the resulting assemblies were characterized by grazing incidence reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, contact angle measurements, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy; the obtained surface coverage values were successfully fitted with a Langmuir isotherm.