Chemomechanical Functionalization and Patterning of Silicon

Abstract

The chemomechanical method has emerged as a straightforward and convenient tool for simultaneously functionalizing and patterning silicon. This technique simply consists of wetting (or exposing) a silicon surface to a reactive chemical and then scribing. Scribing activates the surface and leads to monolayer formation. The properties of the monolayers are dependent on the reactive chemicals used, and mixed monolayers and funtionalized monolayers are easily produced with mixed chemicals or alpha,omega-bifunctional compounds, respectively. Both micrometer and nanometer sized functionalized features have been created. It has been shown that this technique has potential in a variety of applications.

Wet chemical routes to the assembly of organic monolayers on silicon surfaces via the formation of Si–C bonds: surface preparation, passivation and functionalization

“…Those are: (a) the expanding literature on porous silicon chemistry and porous silicon biosensing applications; [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62] (b) metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) studies on organic modified silicon surfaces; 39,43,48,[63][64][65][66][67] (c) chemomechanical functionalisation approaches (i.e. 'wetting and scribe' methods); 68,69 and (d) ultra-high vacuum reactions (UHV, 10 À10 mbar or lower) of unsaturated molecules on reconstructed semiconductor surfaces. 42,70,71 2.…”

Challenges and breakthroughs in recent research on self-assembly

“…One of the most frequently used techniques for modification of solid surfaces is that of self-assembled monolayer (SAM) formation, which is a useful method for construction of interfacial self-assembled structures on solid surfaces [882,[883][884][885][886][887][888]. As illustrated in figure 104, three main types of method for covalent bonding have been proposed.…”

“…As illustrated in figure 104, three main types of method for covalent bonding have been proposed. Science and technology based on surface coating has been widely developed using the SAM method [882,[883][884][885][886][887][888].…”

Cycloaddition Functionalization of Cleaved Microstructures

“…[4] Several approaches have been proposed and demonstrated so far: from electrochemical control of biomolecular self-assembly, [5] gold-thiol interactions, [2] to local top-down lithography and silanization, [6] photothermal nanopatterning [7] and chemomechanical functionalization. [8] Recently we proposed an alternative functionalization method [9] that shares with the chemomechanical patterning described in ref. [8] the concept of mechanical modification inside a reactive medium but is intrinsically self-aligned with pre-nanofabricated structures.…”

“…[8] Recently we proposed an alternative functionalization method [9] that shares with the chemomechanical patterning described in ref. [8] the concept of mechanical modification inside a reactive medium but is intrinsically self-aligned with pre-nanofabricated structures. We used silicon sacrificial structures, fabricated for this purpose, that we cleaved inside a reactive medium, exploiting the reactivity of the freshly cleaved surface, thus generating a chemically functionalized structure at a predefined location of a device with arbitrary shape and size, with the only constraint being the fundamental limits imposed by the lithographic techniques.…”