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Department of Chemistry an Biochemistry, University of California at Santa Cruz

SAM-Based Molecular Junctions

This project seeks an easy and inexpensive way to fabricate large-area molecular junction devices for the applications of microelectronics, magnetic tunneling junction device, and chemical sensor.

Initial work has been successful, where we coat polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with 20 ~ 40 nm of Au (or Ag, Co) by thermal evaporation. This array is then directly contacted with an a,w-alkanedithiol SAM surface. The Au immediately “wets”, coats and transfers to the SAM surface. We pattern the Au into squares of specific dimension, by photolithographic rapid prototyping. We have also transferred Ag and Co, the first such example. Co is potentially useful for SAM-based spintronic devices, as will be discussed. Preliminary characterization methods of the products have been optical and scanning electron microscopies, contact angle, reflectance IR, XPS, AFM, and I-V measurements.

Elastomeric stamp deformation has been utilized for the contact printing (CP) of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and more recently polymers and proteins. We take advantage of this well-studied phenomenon to fabricate a series of new metal thin film patterns not present on the original stamp. The new shapes are controlled by a combination of stamp geometry design and the application of external pressure. This method represents a new pathway to micro-patterning metal thin films, leading to shapes with higher complexity than the original lithographic masters.

See reference: Xiaojuan Fan, Dat T. Tran, Daniel P. Brennan and Scott R. J. Oliver*, "Microfabrication Using Elastomeric Stamp Deformation", J. Phys. Chem. 2006. (in press)

In preparation: Xiaojuan Fan, David L. Rogow, Claudia H. Swanson, Akhilesh Tripath, and Scott R. J. Oliver*, "Structure and Conductance of large-area molecular Junction".

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