Patent ID: 6878417

Claim:
A method of patterning a surface of a solid on a molecular scale, comprising: providing a reactive solid having a surface; forming a pattern of adsorbed molecules at sites on said surface of said reactive solid by providing a plurality of preselected molecules and exposing said surface to said preselected molecules; and forming an imprinted pattern covering less than every surface atom on said surface by irradiating the surface and the pattern of the adsorbed molecules with effective excitation energy to form a chemical bond between at least one constituent of the adsorbed molecules and the reactive solid locally to the sites where the adsorbed molecules are adsorbed on said surface, wherein said pattern of adsorbed molecules include elongated chains along which electrical charge can flow, including selected functional groups chemically bound to selected constituents in said elongated chains at intervals therealong, and wherein when said pattern of adsorbed molecules is irradiated said chemical bond between said selected functional groups and said constituent is broken, and wherein said selected constituent forms a chemical bond with said surface of said substrate at said intervals to anchor the imprinted elongated chains to said surface.