Covalent grafting of organic molecular chains on amorphous carbon surfaces

Abstract The functionalization of amorphous carbon surfaces by organic monolayers has been performed using a low-temperature (120 °C) liquid-phase process. Linear undecylenic ester CH 2 CH(CH 2 ) 8 COOC 2 H 5 molecules are expected to form covalent C C bonds by reaction of alkene moieties with C H terminated surfaces. Amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films were grown using plasma decomposition of CH 4 and graphite sputtering in Ar H 2 . XPS data analysis provides a quantitative estimate of the density of covalently attached molecules (0.07–0.2 × 10 15 cm −2 ) which is compared with the functionalization of H-passivated c-Si(1 1 1) surfaces.