Organization of microcrystals on glass by adenine-thymine hydrogen bonding

Shaking of adenine-tethering glass plates in an aqueous suspension of micrometer-sized, thymine-tethering zeolite crystals such as ZSM-5 (0.6 mum x 1.7 mum x 2.5 mum) or zeolite-A (1.7 mum x 1.7 mum x 1.7 mum) for 3 h at room temperature leads to facile assembly of monolayers of the zeolite microcrystals on the glass plates through the hydrogen-bonding interaction between the tethered adenine and thymine. Control experiments show that the presence of adenine and thymine on the respective solid surface is essential for the monolayer assembly. This establishes that even the micrometer-sized building blocks can be organized by a large number of well-defined weak hydrogen bonding. Increase in the assembly temperature to annealing temperatures leads to a marked increase in the rate of monolayer assembly and in the size of the domain in which zeolite crystals are closely packed in the same three-dimensional orientation.