Invited Paper NS+NC-TuM3
Driving Forces and Barriers in Formation of Nanostructured Assemblies at Surfaces

Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 8:40 am, Room 311

Much of the recent interest in micro- to nano-scale patterned molecular structures on substrates has arisen from applications ranging from molecule-based integrated logic circuits to “biochips.” In such structures the cascading details of hierarchial assemblies are critical. At the large scale the patterns are created as dictated by large scale needs such as circuit layouts or test probe spatial resolution while at the finest scale the structures may require precise single molecule placement and associated controlled local chemical and electrostatic environments. Throughout the hierarchical manifold of structures a wide range of chemical potential differences may exist in the components, leading to inherent instabilities, and large thermodynamic driving forces built into the processing conditions often result in unexpected nanostructures as subtle kinetic pathways steer the system into metastable and unexpected final states. These effects will be discussed with specific examples from our own work and selected work from other groups.