Stamping of Monomeric SAMs as a Route to Structured Crystallization Templates: Patterned Titania Films

Abstract

Gold-coated glass slides have be patterned by using self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of alkane thiols. Through the use of a special thiol terminated with a styrene monomer, microstructures of 5 to 10 microm width and 70 A height have been formed on the surface by graft polymerization of styrene. These patterned gold slides have then been used to template the precipitation of thin titania films from ethanolic solutions of titanium isopropoxide to create microstructured architectures in the film. Plasmon resonance spectra have established the presence of different steps in the process and have been used to follow the kinetics of the precipitation of titania on the surface. The structured TiO2 films have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy.

Advances in engineered surfaces for functional performance

“…Patterned chromating [46] Patterned phosphating [46] Chemical deposition coatings Patterned chemical deposition (CVD) [228] Chemical processes Patterned autocatalytic plating [114,242] Electrolytic coating Anodising [46] Electro-deposition [67,129] Patterned precipitation coating [13] Physical deposition Inkjet for wear-resistant patterns [167,168,208] Patterned curing [206] Focused Ion Beam for wear-resistant patterns [54] Patterned physical vapor deposition [113] Patterned organic coating (painting) Deposition of micro-or nanoparticles [252] Self-assembling in polycrystalline films [241] eroding bath and the geometry of the masks protecting parts of the substrate.…”

Site selective micro-patterned rutile TiO2 film through a seed layer deposition

“…Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has many useful electrical and optical properties, such as a high refractive index, high dielectrical permittivity, semiconductivity, excellent transmittance of visible light, and so forth, which make TiO 2 films useful in many fields, like microelectonics [2], optical cells [3], solar energy conversion [4], efficient catalyst [5]. Accordingly, fabrication of thin films and micropatterns of TiO 2 has been attempted by various methods in the past decades [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

“…This feature has permitted the ability to pattern polymer thin films on the nanometer scale. (3) Microcontact printing (µCP) [11][12][13][14][15]. During this process, the PDMS stamp was used to transfer a kind of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) patterns to the substrate, and then the patterned SAMs could be used as the templates for the deposition or etching materials.…”

Microchannel Molding: A Soft Lithography-inspired Approach to Micrometer-scale Patterning

“…The PDMS can be used either as a mold to impart patterns via physical confinement of a fluid precursor that dries to form the final structured thin film or as a stamp to directly transfer the material to the target substrate. The confinementbased techniques include microtransfer molding (TM), [2][3][4] micromolding in capillaries (MIMIC), [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and embossing, [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] while microcontact printing (CP) [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] is an example of stamping. Schematic drawings of these techniques are provided in Fig.…”