Interfacial Architectures Research Articles

Designing Interfaces at the Molecular Level

The creation of organized thin films (OTFs) of organic compounds has developed into an increasingly important research area at the frontier of analytical chemistry. In this Report we present an overview of the development and application of OTFs to analytical chemistry. We will discuss the origins and preparative methodologies of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) and spontaneously adsorbed (SA) films, the two most used routes toward the creation of OTFs. We will also examine the structural attributes of OTFs that can be used to clarify the issues related to transduction mechanisms that are important to analytical chemistry and to designing interfacial architectures with advanced functions. We highlight a few of the many uses of OTFs, beginning with fundamental studies of interfacial processes, followed by emerging applications to chemical analysis. Reviews of applications of OTFs in other areas provide additional fundamental and technological information. 42 refs., 3 figs.