A progression of experiments were performed on the well-known Au-alkanethiol self assembled monolayer system in an effort to understand the time-evolution of the layers. These studies were undertaken from the perspectives of:

(1) average alkanethiol chain structure, determined by computer modelling of infrared reflectance spectra;

(2) monolayer performance as a dielectric barrier, determined by electrochemical methods; and

(3) the time-evolution of absolute film coverage, measured by both surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy and a new technique developed in our laboratory based on thin-metal-film resistance.

Finally, these analytical methods were combined in experiments which jointly measure and spatially control the depostion of alkanethiol layers resulting in dynamically controllable 1-D gradients in monolayer coverage across an Au plane.