Spherical dendrimers with phenylazomethine backbones are modified onto atomically flat mica or graphite substrates with a simple solvent based spin-coating method, and the resulting surfaces are observed by atomic force microscopy. Especially on the mica substrate, dendrimers form very fine and highly regular patterns with aligned nano-dot arrays and lines. An important observation is that the interval of each dot or line is ≈400 nm whereas previously reported self-assembling patterns exhibit longer intervals than 5 μm. It is revealed that spherical dendrimers with relatively low intermolecular interactions without any terminal modifications are suitable for the fine self-assembling pattern formation. This fact suggests that the regular pattern arises from a physical dissipative structure formation due to a fingering instability induced by Marangoni convection but not by anisotropic intermolecular interactions.
Mono-molecular films formed by physical adsorption and dendrimer self-assembly were prepared on various substrate surfaces. It was demonstrated that a uniform dendrimer-based monolayer on the subnanometer scale can be easily constructed via simple dip coating. Furthermore, it was shown that an epitaxially grown monolayer film reflecting the crystal structure of the substrate (highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG)) can also be formed by aligning specific conditions.
Back Cover: Dendrimers form very fine and highly regular patterns with aligned nano‐dot arrays and lines by a simple spin‐coating method. An important observation is that the intervals of the dots and lines are around 400 nm, whereas previously reported self‐assembling patterns show all longer intervals of more than 5 μm. Further details can be found in the article by T. Imaoka, N. Bukeo, and K. Yamamoto* on page 616.
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