Investigation into self-assembled monolayers of a polyether dendron thiol:Chemisorption, kinetics, and patterned surface

Different sizes of Frechet-type dendrons with a thiol group at the focal po int were synthesized, well characterized, and used as building blocks for t he preparation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on metal surfaces. From the studies of the kinetic process of dendron thiol self-assembling on gold , it is shown that the dendron thiol assembling proceeds with different ads orption rates depending on the assembly time. In contrast to normal alkanet hiols forming highly molecular structures on metal surfaces, the SAMs of po lyether dendron form patterned surfaces with nanometer-sized features and i n long-range order. It is found that the patterned stripes are closely rela ted to the size of the dendron, and the patterned stripes can be improved b y thermal annealing.