AFM and SNOM characterization of carboxylic acid terminated silicon and silicon nitride surfaces

✍ Scribed by A. Cricenti; G. Longo; M. Luce; R. Generosi; P. Perfetti; D. Vobornik; G. Margaritondo; P. Thielen; J.S. Sanghera; I.D. Aggarwal; J.K. Miller; N.H. Tolk; D.W. Piston; F. Cattaruzza; A. Flamini; T. Prosperi; A. Mezzi

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 341 KB
• Volume: 544
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0039-6028
• DOI: 10.1016/s0039-6028(03)00999-3

✦ Synopsis

Silicon and silicon nitride surfaces have been successfully terminated with carboxylic acid monolayers and investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM). On clean Si surface, AFM showed topographical variations of 0.3-0.4 nm while for the clean Si 3 N 4 surface the corrugation was around 3-4 nm. After material deposition, the corrugation increased in both samples with a value in topography of 1-2 nm for Si and 5-6 nm for Si 3 N 4 . The space distribution of specific chemical species was obtained by taking SNOM reflectivity at several infrared wavelengths corresponding to stretch absorption bands of the material. The SNOM images showed a constant contribution in the local reflectance, suggesting that the two surfaces were uniformly covered.