Self-assembled monolayers, SAMs

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are thin organic films which form spontaneously on solid surfaces. They have been shown to be useful as passivating layers and also for the modification of surface properties. Potential applications include wetting, adhesion, friction, chemical sensing, ultrafine scale lithography, and protection of metals against corrosion. Among these techniques for generating patterned SAMs, microcontact printing is the most practical because it is simple and rugged. This technique has been used to produce substrates for several different applications. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a gas-phase thin film deposition method using self-terminating surface reactions. ALD process is very sensitive to the surface conditions of the substrates, it offers an ideal method for selective deposition of thin films on patterned SAMs.