Combinatorial libraries of fluorescent monolayers on glass

Fluorescent self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on glass surfaces are discussed as new sensing materials for metal ions and inorganic anions. The sensing SAMs are created by sequential deposition of two building blocks, a fluorophore and a ligand molecule onto an amino terminated SAM on glass slides. A large number of different systems can be fabricated by combinatorial techniques and parallel synthesis. A collection of sensing SAMs constitute a cross-reactive sensor array, with which analytes can be identified by differential sensing using the collective response of the SAMs array, instead of the individual response of a single SAM. Arrays of fluorescent SAMs have been produced both in microtiter plate and in multichannel microfluidic chip formats. Additionally, the glass substrates coated with fluorescent SAMs have been used as substrates for chemical patterning.