bnc

Tuning the local frictional and electrostatic responses of nanostructured SrTiO3—surfaces by self-assembled molecular monolayers

M. Paradinas, L. Garzón, F. Sánchez, R. Bachelet, D. B. Amabilino, J. Fontcuberta and C. Ocal
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 12, 4452 - 4458 (2010)

Exploiting the capability of preparing nanostructured bifunctional terminated SrTiO3 substrates (SrO and TiO2), the surface properties have been locally tuned by employing a double bottom-up strategy which combines the use of chemically nanopatterned substrates with molecular self-assembly.  The dynamics of surface diffusion that allows SrO and TiO2 chemical-termination nano-patterning of the SrTiO3 is first addressed. Second, termination-dependent heterogeneous nucleation is used to demonstrate that stearic acid selectively grows on the TiO2 terminated terraces. This adsorption improves the frictional properties and modifies the surf...