Microcontact Printing of Alkanethiols on Silver and Its Application in Microfabrication

Microcontact printing was used to generate patterned self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiolates on the surfaces of evaporated films of copper. These patterned SAMs could be directly used as ultrathin resists that protected the underlying copper from etching in aqueous solutions of FeCl3/HCl or FeCl3/NH4Cl. Arrays of junctions of Ag/Ag2O/Cu were fabricated using a multistep procedure that combines metal evaporation, microcontact printing, and selective etching.