Self-assembled monolayers: Recent developments and applications

Recent developments in self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have yielded materials of diverse structure and function. Useful tools based on SAMs are now available for probing molecular recognition at interfaces, analyzing the binding of proteins and other biologically relevant molecules, and spatially tailoring the chemical properties of a solid surface. SAMs have been developed which are suited to the modification of a wide range of complex substrates. Patterned growth techniques based on SAMs have been developed which might be applied to the fabrication of microelectronic and other complex molecular-scale devices.