Porphyrinoid thin films for chemical sensing

Thin film deposition of porphyrinoids is a critical step for the development of reliable chemical sensors. The binding properties, in liquid phase, of these compounds should be in fact preserved as much as possible in the solid state, to allow an efficient recognition of target analytes. However, the solid-state arrangements of these macrocycles could offer additional binding mechanisms that exceed those possible to the single molecules allowing to even enhance the superb binding versatility of porphyrinoids. In this manuscript, we have reviewed mostly our approach for the thin film deposition of porphyrinoids, going from the simple, noncontrolled techniques to the preparation of composite inorganic/organic materials. All these opportunities drive the aggregation of porphyrinoids by supramolecular interactions and the possibility to merge their properties with those of inorganic materials open the way to an almost unlimited possibility to prepare optimized sensing layers.