Epitaxial growth and applications of oriented metal–organic framework thin films

Thin film materials have been used widely in semiconductor devices, including solar cells, transistors, light emitting diodes, light crystal displays, smart windows, chips as well as temperature and gas sensors. As multilayer materials with nanometers in thickness, metal–organic framework (MOF) thin films have been increasingly investigated due to their potential applications in molecular recognition/separation, catalysis, sensors and devices. In this review, we will summarize recent works focusing on epitaxial growth and applications of surface-mounted MOF thin films (SURMOFs) and encapsulated SURMOFs on substrate surfaces. Such oriented, compact and homogenous thin films provide a promising model for studying the crucial intrinsic properties in coordination chemistry, growth mechanism, chiral chemistry and the guest diffusion behavior in MOFs system. Their related applications on molecular adsorption and separation, optical applications, organic field effect transistors and catalysis are also descripted in this review. This review will be of interest to researchers on attempting to design other multifunctional MOF thin films and those engage in the extension of thin films to particle applications of sensors and devices.