Monolayers of simple organic molecules on silicon studied by surface tools

Simple organic molecules such as 1-octadecene, 1-tetradecene, 1-dodecyne and 1,13-tetradecadiene have been grafted to hydrogenated B-doped silicon (100) surfaces. Such substrate has been obtained by etching commercial native oxide-capped flat crystal silicon wafers with procedures involving dilute HF aqueous solutions, but also by hydrogenation with a new method involving treatment of the wafer in an oven with H-2 gas. The functionalization of such a surface has been done by using described wet methodologies involving pure liquids or solutions with thermal activation of the hydride. Contact angle, ESCA, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) measurements have been carried out to characterize the above systems. Particular emphasis is devoted to the interpretation of the ToF-SIMS spectra, seldom used until now to characterize organic monolayers. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.