Molecular electronics, application films

Reactions on the surface are interesting. The adsorptions of unsaturated organic molecules on the surface provide a means for fabricating well-ordered monolayer films. Thin film organic layers can be used for diverse applications such as chemical and biological sensors, computer displays, and molecular electronics. 

Thin polymer films have many possible technical applications. Transistors and light-emitting diodes are the obvious ones. In ultra-thin films, one may even approach an electronics of molecular dimension. Molecular electronics will be a future challenge for basic and applied science. Nature applies it on a large scale in the reaction centers of the photosynthetic process, where photoinduced mobile charges are separated in some analogy to the separation of the photo-(p-n)-pair in the junction zone of a semiconductor (see Section 13.3.1). 

Aluminum oxide (alumina), AI2O3, has lugh technological value. Sol-gel processing of alumina has created novel applications and improved some of its properties. Products such as catalyst earners, abrasives, fibers, films for electronic applications, aerogels, and membranes for molecular filtration have been developed based on sol-gel processing. See also Alumina Adsorption (Process) and Bauxite Aluminum and Aluminum Alloys and Engineered Materials. 

Verani and coworkers widely investigated stimuli-responsive soft materials with interesting optical and redox behaviors. Such materials are able to self-assembly in functional ordered structures, as Langmuir-Blodgett films and liquid crystals, and possess potential applications in molecular electronics and magnetic films as well. These compounds are mainly based on Co(II) (94), Co(III) (95), Cu(II) (96), Fe(II)/Fe(III) (97), and Ni (II) and Zn(II) (98). A recent overview dedicated to colloidal systems, and their application in different fields has recently appeared in the literature (99). 

Redox series of metal-polypyridines still await their practical exploration. The existence of multistep, reversible, sequential reduction processes, each step occurring at a defined potential and being localized at a specific molecular site, is very promising for possible applications in molecular electronics. This would require to organize the active complexes in films, polymers or supermolecules. Up to now, only the electrochromic behavior of some [Ru(N,N)a] + complexes has been explored with potential applications in electrochromic glasses, displays and redox sensors [206, 262, 264]. 

Loucif-Saibi, R., Nakatani, K., Delaire, J. A., Dumont, M., and Sekkat, Z. (1993). Influence of photoisomerization of azobenzene derivatives in polymeric thin films on second harmonic generation towards applications in molecular electronics. Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst, 235. 53.3-540. 

Since the deposition of high-quality PTFE thin films may be important in many applications ranging from material reinforcement to molecular electronics, it has been attempted simply by a mechanical method [50], by vacuum thermal evaporation [51], by ion-beam sputtering [52], and extensively... 

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