Recent advances in the field of self-assembly have led to the development of a plethora of new technologies derived from soft lithography that enable alternative ways of fabricating thin films with two- and three-dimensional patterns on material surfaces. Techniques involving the patterning of thicker polymer layers grafted to the substrate have been developed, based on selectively decorating the material surfaces with polymerization initiators and then performing the polymerization directly on the surface. Using this technology, the thickness of the overcoat film can be adjusted by simply varying the polymerization conditions (time, monomer concentration, polymerization temperature). Using these techniques, we have developed two simple methodologies that allow for combinatorial variation of selected properties of polymers anchored on surfaces, most notably the polymer grafting density and the polymer molecular weight. (C) 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.