Nanoscale insights in the creation and transfer of chirality in amino acid monolayers at defined metal surfaces

The immobilisation and organisation of chiral biomolecules at surfaces is considered to be an important step towards the creation of single-handed biopolymers of life. However, much of this behaviour remains little understood. Recently, surface spectroscopic and imaging techniques have begun to map some of the primary adsorption and self-organisation events of such interfaces. Here, a brief account of the current status of work conducted on amino acid and dipeptide adsorption on metal single crystal surfaces is presented, and shows that such monolayers show highly dynamic and polymorphic behaviour with various manifestations of chirality displayed at both the local and the organisational level. Furthermore, it is seen that even simple amino acids at surfaces display important functional attributes such as chiral molecular recognition. Finally, the effect of amino acids on the metal substrate is, in some cases, quite profound, leading to chiral imprinting via chiral faceting and reconstruction.