AVS 50th International Symposium
    Processing at the Nanoscale Thursday Sessions
       Session PN-ThA

Paper PN-ThA3
Reactions of Silicon and Gold Nanostructures on Surface-Templated Molecule Corrals

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 2:40 pm, Room 317

Session: Molecular Monolayers
Presenter: Y. Liu, University of Delaware
Authors: Y. Liu, University of Delaware
Z Zhang, University of Delaware
M. Wells, University of Delaware
A.V. Teplyakov, University of Delaware
T.P. Beebe, Jr., University of Delaware
Correspondent: Click to Email
Semiconductor and metal nanostructures display novel size-dependent properties as a result of quantum confinement. New concepts and new challenges evolve with regard to the potential applications of these nanostructures in molecular electronics, sensors, biological interfaces and biomedical applications, advanced material design, charge storage, light-emitting diodes, energetic materials, and other applications that remain unknown at present. Semiconductor and metal nanostructures on surface-templated molecule corrals are unique because large numbers of these nanostructures with controlled size, height, shape, surface density, and position or pattern can be produced quickly and efficiently with a narrow size dispersion in a parallel process that takes only minutes. In this work, the formation and modification of silicon and gold nanostructures templated on the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) basal plane will be discussed. Molecule corrals are typically formed with a high degree of control by a simple bench-top process in an oven operating at approximately 650 °C in the ambient air from the preexisting natural defects or manmade (ion-beam bombardment) defects on the surface. Silicon and gold nanostructures are vacuum evaporated onto these size- and shape-controlled molecule corrals. These nanostructures are then functionalized with a number of reagents, including organosilanes and organothiols. Scanning tunneling microscopy, atomic force microscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to characterize the degree of chemical modification of surface-templated nanostructures before and after modification.