AVS 51st International Symposium
    Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Friday Sessions
       Session NS-FrM

Paper NS-FrM4
Studies of Self-Assembling Bilayers for Layered Nanofabrication (LNF)

Friday, November 19, 2004, 9:20 am, Room 213D

Session: Nanometer-scale Structures
Presenter: T.-Y. Shih, University of Southern California
Authors: T.-Y. Shih, University of Southern California
A.A.G. Requicha, University of Southern California
M.E. Thompson, University of Southern California
B.E. Koel, University of Southern California
Correspondent: Click to Email
Designed fabrication of structures on a nanometer scale often requires progress in the efficiency and control in deposition of self-assembled monolayers, especially in an approach we have called layered nanofabrication (LNF). We report on the embedding of gold nanoparticles in several layers of octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) deposited on a SiO@sub2@ surface. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used in ex-situ studies of the formation of self-replicating bilayers with hydrophobic-hydrophilic properties and hydrogen bonding as triggered by treatments using acetone. Analysis of the Au nanoparticles after several bilayer-by-bilayer growth cycles showed that they decreased in apparent height and roughness according to the number of deposited layers. Ellipsometry was used to monitor the OTS film thickness and characterize the film growth mode. We were able to achieve a controllable, stepwise linear growth of a flat, multilayer film that eventually produced a high-quality, planarized nanoparticle-containing surface.