Self-Assembled Organic Thin Films as Recognition Elements in Chemical Sensors

The formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of organic substances onto inorganic surfaces has been in-tensively investigated since the 1980's. SAMs have found applications in various fields, such as chemical sensors (electrochemical, surface acoustic and optical), surface engineering (wettability, friction, corrosion protection, pas-sivation), construction of conductive and electro-active coatings, and study of optical phenomena (such as second harmonic generation). Recent work by VTT has focussed on three industrial application areas of SAMs: (1) elec-tron-conductive coatings and materials, (2) self-assembled polymerisation initiators and (3) molecularly imprinted SAMs. Molecular imprinted coatings have emerged as a new alternative technique for making biorecognition sur-faces, which does not rely on biological receptors. Some strategies to make imprinted molecular receptor layers onto acoustic sensors were presented.