title: Spontaneous "phase separation" of patterned binary alkanethiol mixtures.
abstract: This article describes novel phase-separation behavior by a binary mixture of alkanethiols when deposited onto a gold surface using micro- and nanodeposition tools, such as microcontact printing (muCP) and dip-pen nanolithography (DPN). This behavior is significantly different than that observed in the bulk. We demonstrate this behavior using three model compounds: 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA), 1-octadecanethiol (ODT), and CF3(CF2)11(CH2)2SH (PFT). The identity of the resulting segregated structure is confirmed by lateral force microscopy (LFM) and by selective metal-organic coordination chemistry. Importantly, this phenomenon can be exploited to print sub-100 nm wide alkanethiol lines via conventional muCP and to form sub-15 nm features using DPN, which is below the ultimate resolution of both these techniques. We also demonstrate that these nano-patterned materials can serve as templates for constructing more complex architectures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Khalid
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Salaita
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amarnath
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Maspoch
authors.forename: Thomas B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.forename: Chad A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Mirkin