Irradiation promoted exchange reaction with disulfide substituents

Exchange reaction between the primary self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on gold and potential molecular substituents capable of forming a SAM on the same substrate can be promoted by electron irradiation. Here we demonstrate that such a promoted reaction can be performed not only with thiols but with disulfides as substituents as well. This extends significantly the assortments of the suitable compounds, resulting in a broader variety of mixed SAMs and chemical patterns which can be fabricated by this technique. The kinetics of the promoted exchange reaction was studied in detail. The feasibility and practical usefulness of the approach were demonstrated by the experiments with a disulfide substituent bearing a tail group which can serve as an initiator for surface-initiated polymerization. A variety of complex polymer brush patterns was prepared using several representative polymers, relevant for biomedical research and applications, as test systems.