Abstract

The breaking of molecular bonds during exposure to ionizing radiation and electron beams creates irreversible damage in the molecular structure. In some cases, such as lithography, controlled damage of a molecular resist is a desirable process and is the basis for the entire semiconductor industry. In other cases, such as environmental exposure or probing of the molecular structure, the induced damage is a major problem that has limited advances in science and technology. We report here the use of an in situ probe that is minimally invasive to detect real-time damage induced in organic materials. Specifically, we use metastable excited helium atoms in the 3S1 state to characterize the damage caused by a low-energy electron beam ∼30 eV on an organic self-assembled monolayer of 11-bromo-1-undecanethiol on a gold substrate. We were able to monitor the damage caused by the electron beam without introducing any additional observed damage by the probing metastable atoms.

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