Probing Hydrocarbon Chain Length Effects on Sam Surfaces: a Study of Ion / Surface Interactions

Low and high energy ion/surface scattering techniques are used to investigate chain length effects for self-assembled monolayer (SAM) surfaces consisting of n-alkanethiol molecules on gold substrates. The focus of this work was to probe the structure, packing, and stability of the SAM surfaces using ion/surface interactions. Mechanisms are investigated for low and high energy ion/surface collisions, providing a more complete understanding of mass spectrometry techniques such as tandem mass spectrometry and secondary ion mass spectrometry. The low energy reactive collisions of two independent probe ions illustrate an odd-even hydrocarbon chain length effect for a wide range of hydrocarbon SAM surfaces. Variations in coverage, extent of oxidation, and high mass cluster formation as a function of hydrocarbon chain length of the alkanethiol SAM surfaces were investigated using high energy ion/surface collisions. This book should assist people interested in ion/surface interactions utilizing mass spectrometry and will further assist students and professionals focusing on materials science and surface chemistry.