Covalent poly(methyl methacrylate) nanostructures on functionalized Si(100) surfaces

Material properties are strongly affected by the presence of surface chemical functionalities. In this study we show a platform for fabricating robust poly(methyl methacrylate) molecular architectures covalently bound to silylated Si(100) substrates, by an atom transfer radical polymerization approach. Infrared attenuated total reflectance spectra have shown increasing poly(methyl methacrylate) signals upon increasing the reaction time and can be used to monitor the growth of these hybrid inorganic/organic structures. The chemical composition of these surface structures was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectra. Surface morphology studies were carried out by atomic force microscopy and lithography. In our reaction conditions, the thickness of poly(methyl methacrylate) on Si(100) can be modulated in the nanometer range. Quantum mechanical DFT calculations have been performed to estimate the growth.