Title: Dry and wet methods of silicon dioxide surface functionalisation with 3-aminopropyl trimethoxysilane: application to fullerene C60 anchoring

Authors: A.Grégory Delafosse; Lionel Patrone; Didier Goguenheim

Addresses: Aix-Marseille Université, IM2NP; CNRS, IM2NP (UMR 6242); Institut Supérieur de l'Electronique et du Numérique, IM2NP, Maison des Technologies, Place Georges Pompidou, 83000 Toulon, France. ' Aix-Marseille Université, IM2NP; CNRS, IM2NP (UMR 6242); Institut Supérieur de l'Electronique et du Numérique, IM2NP, Maison des Technologies, Place Georges Pompidou, 83000 Toulon, France. ' CNRS, IM2NP (UMR 6242); Institut Supérieur de l'Electronique et du Numérique, IM2NP, Maison des Technologies, Place Georges Pompidou, 83000 Toulon, France

Abstract: In this work, we have studied the formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS), chemically bound to silicon dioxide surface, prepared using a deposition from both solution and a new solvent-free process, using contact angle measurements, ellipsometry, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and AFM imaging. In the first part, we have analysed the grafting kinetics of APTMS SAMs to control the formation of a single monolayer. Results show that with the dry deposition method about 4 h are needed to obtain a complete APTMS single monolayer. In parallel, the ordering kinetics of the SAM has been monitored by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, showing that the monolayer reaches its final order before grafting. The possibility of using the as-obtained APTMS SAMs from wet and dry methods for anchoring functional molecular moieties is then probed with fullerene C60 molecules deposited from a solution. The grafting kinetics of C60 is studied on wetly deposited APTMS, showing a first step at about two monolayers. At last, comparative analysis of C60 grafted on either dryly or wetly deposited APTMS shows that the latter allows obtaining more homogeneous C60 layer. Such results could help in paving the way to the preparation of hybrid C60-based molecular devices on silicon through a bottom-up approach.

Keywords: self-assembled monolayers; aminopropyltrimethoxysilane; APTMS; fullerene C60; silicon oxide; grafting kinetics; silicon dioxide; surface functionalisation; ordering kinetics; nanotechnology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2012.045336

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2012 Vol.9 No.3/4/5/6/7, pp.312 - 324

Published online: 06 Feb 2012 *

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