The motivation of the present work is our research on a cantilever-based chemical sensor. We are addressing the question of the source of the surface stress on a gold-coated cantilever due to alkanethiol adsorption. By simultaneously measuring layer thickness and cantilever stress during alkanethiol monolayer self-assembly, the aim is to gain some insight on where the surface stress comes from. The technique we used to monitor layer thickness is ellipsometry. The ellipsometer is used to measure, in situ, the formation dynamics of self-assembled alkanethiol monolayers under different conditions. The thickness evolution is interpreted in terms of monolayer phases (lying-down and standing-up). During these experiments, the ellipsometer is proven to have Angstrom resolution. Following our objectives, a combined stress-thickness set-up is designed and built. Preliminary results are presented while further investigations are currently being made.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.79024 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Laroche, Olivier |
| Contributors | Grutter, Peter (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001986447, proquestno: AAIMQ88239, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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