Self-assembly of vesicle nanoarrays on Si: A potential route to high-density functional protein arrays

The authors show that 100 nm unilamellar thiol-tagged vesicles bind discretely and specifically to Au nanodots formed on a Si surface. An array of such dots, consisting of 20 nm Au-Si three-dimensional islands, is formed by self-assembly on terraces of small-angle-miscut Si(111) after Au deposition. Consequently, both the formation of the nanopattern and the subsequent attachment of the vesicles are self-organized and occur without the need for any "top-down" lithographic processes. This approach has the potential to provide the basis of a low-cost, high-density nanoarray for use in proteomics and drug discovery.