Coordination Chemical Approach to Surface Molecular Devices: Molecular Basis toward Surface Programming

Abstract

Assembling functional coordination compounds into nano-scaled architectures on solid surfaces is a fundamental topic of nanomaterial science because of tremendous applications in electronics and biological devices. This review focuses on the use of self-assembled monolayer(SAM) as a platform for the functionalization of solid surfaces such as ITO and nanocarbons(graphene and nanotube). The recent advances for self-assembling of organic phosphonic acids on metal oxide have been surveyed, and then the immobilization of redox-active Ru/Os complexes bearing multipod phosphonic acids onto ITO has been discussed from the viewpoint of molecular orientation and the merit of multipod anchoring on surface. Following self-assembly of the primer layer on solid surface, layer-by-layer growth of the molecular units by coordination programming has been discussed. Characterization of surface-confined SAM films based on redox-active complexes has been discussed about how to characterize nano-scaled films on solid surface. Chemical functions of multilayer films directed toward molecular electronics have been reviewed with respect to molecular memory, single molecular conductance, and molecular wires. However, there are a lot of challenging issues left to be tackled such as the surface metal-organic frameworks, photo responsive devices, and molecular sensing surface mimicking human five senses.