Eur. Phys. J. D 52, 99-102 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2009-00069-9

Characterization of alkyl monolayer covalently bonded to Si(111) and soft-landing of vanadium-benzene sandwich clusters onto the alkyl monolayer substrate

¹ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, 223-8522, Yokohama, Japan
² Division of Materials Physics, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, 560-8531, Osaka, Japan
³ CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, 332-0012, Saitama, Japan

Corresponding author: ^a nakajima@sepia.chem.keio.ac.jp

Received: 19 September 2008
Published online: 6 March 2009

Abstract

A hexadecyl monolayer covalently attached to Si(111) surfaces (C₁₆–Si(111)) was prepared at 200 ^○C from 1-hexadecene. Formation of the monolayer was characterized by water contact angle measurement, attenuated total reflection infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Gas phase synthesized vanadium (V)-benzene (Bz) 1:2 (VBz₂) sandwich clusters were size-selectively deposited onto the C₁₆–Si(111) substrate thus prepared and an oxidized Si substrate. Investigation of the resultant clusters was implemented by thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS). About 30 K increase in threshold desorption temperature of the landed clusters was observed on going from the oxidized Si to the C₁₆–Si(111) substrate, a result indicating that the clusters are more strongly bound to the C₁₆–Si(111) than to the oxidized Si. This result was explained by the penetration of the landed clusters into the hexadecyl monolayer.