Nanopatterning of hydroxy-terminated self-assembled monolayer taking advantage of terminal group modification

Abstract The feasibility of using an octenyltrimethoxysilane (OCS) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) as a high-resolution electron beam (EB) resist is investigated. The vinyl groups of the OCS SAM can be modified into hydroxy groups, which are useful for biochip fabrication. The hydroxy-modified OCS SAM exhibits higher sensitivity than a vinyl-terminated one. By using the hydroxy-modified OCS SAM as an EB resist, a miniaturized pattern of 18 nm is achieved. Since the hydroxy-modified OCS SAM is repellent to many proteins, this methodology can be useful for the fabrication of protein-immobilizing templates of a molecular scale.