Probing Hydrocarbon Chain Length Effects on SAM Surfaces

Low and high energy ion/surface scattering
techniques are used to investigate chain length
effects for self-assembled monolayer (SAM) surfaces
consisting of n-alkanethiol molecules on gold
substrates. The focus of this work was to probe the
structure, packing, and stability of the SAM
surfaces using ion/surface interactions. Mechanisms
are investigated for low and high energy ion/surface
collisions, providing a more complete understanding
of mass spectrometry techniques such as tandem mass
spectrometry and secondary ion mass spectrometry.
The low energy reactive collisions of two
independent probe ions illustrate an odd-even
hydrocarbon chain length effect for a wide range of
hydrocarbon SAM surfaces. Variations in coverage,
extent of oxidation, and high mass cluster formation
as a function of hydrocarbon chain length of the
alkanethiol SAM surfaces were investigated using
high energy ion/surface collisions. This book
should assist people interested in ion/surface
interactions utilizing mass spectrometry and will
further assist students and professionals focusing
on materials science and surface chemistry.