GENERATION OF SURFACE COATING DIVERSITY

This invention relates to a surface discovery system and high-throughput combinatorial synthesis methods for generating large numbers of diverse surface coatings on solid substrates. The system is built upon a synthon which comprises at least three elements: a chemical backbone coating on the solid substrate that comprises a copolymer (B) of at least one passive constituent (P) and at least one active constituent (A); a spacer unit (S) separating the backbone from a functional group; and a functional group (F). The methods comprise the following steps: 1) selecting a plurality of synthons so that each synthon has at least two points of diversity selected from P, A, S and F; 2) applying copolymer B onto a substrate; and 3) attaching a combination of S and F to constituent A of copolymer B. Steps 2) and 3) are performed such that different synthons are generated on localized regions of the substrate.