Directed molecular self-assembly: Its applications to potential electronic materials

Self-assembly techniques are becoming excellent substitutes for conventional photolithographic techniques in terms of the feature sizes of the patterned structures. In particular, this technique can offer the benefits of a bottom-up strategy for material fabrication. Self-assembly of two- and three-dimensional structures on the nanometer scale from a large variety of potential electronic materials has been achieved using the diverse physical and chemical forces between molecules, nanoparticles and substrate surfaces. The fabrication of nano- and/or micro-electronic devices utilizing a molecular-level self-assembly process appears more promising than ever before due to radical advances in synthesis and processing techniques that allow unprecedented control of the formation and manipulation of the nanomaterial into the desired device structures. In this review, recent efforts in the synthesis and processing of novel materials based on surface and molecular forces acting during the self-assembly of the materials and structures are briefly introduced. This review clearly shows that the directed molecular self-assembly will become a core technology that can serve as an indication of the unimaginable electronic devices in the near future.