The functionalization of inorganic and organic surfaces is becoming a key issue in a vast number of technical applications. The present review will focus on a particularly attractive route for surface functionalization via the coating of substrates with ordered, highly-porous, self-assembling layers of metal-organic frameworks. Loading the nm-sized pores of these molecular scaffolds with molecules, clusters, and nanoparticles creates many opportunities for using these flexible, three-dimensional shelf systems as storage material, for developing highly specific sensors, catalysts and electronic devices, as well as implementing optical metamaterials.

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Materials Today (2012) 15(3), 110-116
doi: 10.1016/S1369-7021(12)70046-9