Recognition of lectin with a high signal to noise ratio: carbohydrate-tri(ethylene glycol)-alkanethiol co-adsorbed monolayer.

Densely packed co-adsorbed ultrathin mono molecular layers of short tri(ethylene glycol)-alkanethiolate (for repelling proteins) and maltoside terminated alkanethiolate (for capturing lectin) provided an extremely high signal to noise ratio surface: the repelling molecules, which had two different functions (highly flexible-hydrophilic arm and rigid packing tail group), worked as "nano barriers" in the recognition monolayer.