A series of new ω-alkenyl tertiary amine N-oxides is prepared in solution and immobilized on hydrofluoric acid-etched silicon {111} wafers. These monolayers are characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, contact angle measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and tested for their resistance to non-specific protein adhesion with two model proteins, lysozyme and fibrinogen. The use of silicon substrates is found to give good quality tertiary amine N-oxidemonolayers and these new surfaces are found to be significantly better at preventing non-specific protein adhesion than their parent amines as judged by AFM imaging
