Materials such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN), silicon nitride (SiN), or germanium (Ge) are widely applied as semiconductors. However, there is currently no versatile and robust method to functionalize these materials covalently with organic molecules. The existing methods such as silane-based systems exhibit poor long-term stability.
The research group headed by Rainer Jordan has developed a novel and general surface patterning as well as functionalization technique allowing the controlled deposition of organic molecules on virtually any inorganic material. In the proposed approach, an inorganic substrate is first exposed to an electron beam, which generates locally an ultrathin carbonaceous template film. The substrate is successively immersed in a vinyl monomer solution and irradiated with UV light in order to initiate a photopolymerization process.