Structure of self-assembled layers on silicon: Combined use of spectroscopic variable angle ellipsometry, neutron reflection, and atomic force microscopy

Neutron reflection (NR), spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been used to characterize the structure of self-assembled octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) layers on silicon. The first two of these techniques rely on modeling of the experimental data and may thus result in the unrealistic representation of the composition and structure at the interface. Ambiguities arise from model-dependent analysis complicated by the lack of sufficient external constraints to converge nonunique solutions to a unique one. We show in this work that AFM measurements provide extra constraints to allow us to obtain a physical description closer to the actual structure of the film. It was found that “the simpler the better” modeling strategy very often employed during the fitting of ellipsometric and neutron reflection data is, therefore, not necessarily the best way to obtain a reliable description of the interfacial structure. Our AFM findings necessitated the refit of both neutron and ellipsometric data that were previously described by a single-layer model. Interpretation of the structure of thin layers that is based only on indirect measurements such as SE, NR, and x-ray reflection techniques may be, therefore, misleading. A combined analysis of SE, NR, and AFM data suggests that the OTS film may comprise a rough layer, with pinholes down to bare silicon oxide surface, consisting at least of mono-, bi- and trilayers of OTS molecules