After cleaning a silicon wafer piece as described above, a self-assembled monolayer of 7octenyl trichlorosilane was deposited from the vapor phase by suspending the substrates in a vacuum desiccator with two drops of silane on a glass substrate at the bottom. The substrates were kept in a vacuum of 200 millitorr for 20 min. After venting with nitrogen, the substrates were sonicated with isopropanol and dried under a stream of argon. The SAM coated silicon substrate was immersed in a degassed CH 2 Cl 2 solution of Grubbs generation (II) catalyst (22 mmol) under argon at RT for 1 h. The initiator-functionalized substrate was thoroughly washed with degassed CH 2 Cl 2 and carried on to the next step.