Abstract
This study investigates the controlled chemical functionalization of silicon oxide nanostructures prepared by AFM-anodization lithography of alkyl-terminated silicon. Different conditions for the growth of covalently bound mono-, multi- or submonolayers of distinctively functional silane molecules on nanostructures have been identified by AFM-height investigations. Routes for the preparation of methyl- or amino-terminated structures or silicon surfaces are presented and discussed. The formation of silane monolayers on nanoscopic silicon oxide nanostructures was found to be much more sensitive towards ambient humidity than, e.g., the silanization of larger OH-terminated silica surfaces. Amino-functionalized nanostructures have been successfully modified by the covalent binding of functional fluorescein dye molecules. Upon excitation, the dye-functionalized structures show only weak fluorescence, which may be an indication of a relatively low surface coverage of the dye molecules on length scale that is not accessible by standard AFM measurements.
Highlights
Local anodic oxidation (LAO) nanolithography is a reliable and convenient method for the structuring of silicon on a nanometer scale [1,2,3]
This study investigates the controlled chemical functionalization of silicon oxide nanostructures prepared by AFM-anodization lithography of alkyl-terminated silicon
The different binding mechanisms that can be used for the selective functionalization of local anodic oxidation patterns on monolayer-terminated silicon can be divided into
Summary
Local anodic oxidation (LAO) nanolithography is a reliable and convenient method for the structuring of silicon on a nanometer scale [1,2,3]. The dye-functionalized structures show only weak fluorescence, which may be an indication of a relatively low surface coverage of the dye molecules on length scale that is not accessible by standard AFM measurements. Though a previous study demonstrated the general feasibility to bind silane molecules to LAO nanostructures, there was strong evidence for only a partial coverage of the structure and no complete monolayer formation [25].
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