State of art in porphyrin Langmuir-Blodgett films as chemical sensors

Abstract

Porphyrins are tetrapyrrolic macrocycles with a fascinating and multifarious variegation of properties of essential significance in up-to-date and leading technologies. From a different point of view, the Langmuir-Blodgett technique allows the immobilisation of films with an accurate regulation of molecular organisation and thickness. As a logical upshot, this manuscript concerns a substantial object of consideration in contemporary research, the utilisation of Langmuir-Blodgett multilayers of porphyrins in sensing elements for the detection of analytes in different matrices. Investigations on the morphological, optical, structural and surface characteristics of these films are remarkably related to the significant properties of sensors with the ultimate goal of rationalising the innermost intercourses between the sensing behaviour and the peculiarities and molecular organisation brought about by the deposition method. The integration of the typical electrical and optical characteristics of porphyrins with the potentialities of the Langmuir-Blodgett multilayer has originated not only encouraging projects but has afforded also certainties on the accomplishment of operative chemical sensors.