Chemomechanical Functionalization and Patterning of Silicon

The chemomechanical method has emerged as a straightforward and convenient tool for simultaneously functionalizing and patterning silicon. This technique simply consists of wetting (or exposing) a silicon surface to a reactive chemical and then scribing. Scribing activates the surface and leads to monolayer formation. The properties of the monolayers are dependent on the reactive chemicals used, and mixed monolayers and funtionalized monolayers are easily produced with mixed chemicals or alpha,omega-bifunctional compounds, respectively. Both micrometer and nanometer sized functionalized features have been created. It has been shown that this technique has potential in a variety of applications.