Highly wear-resistant ultra-thin per-fluorinated organic monolayers on silicon(1 1 1) surfaces

This study reports on fluorine-containing alkyne-derived monolayers onto Si(1 1 1) substrates to obtain densely packed, highly wear-resistant surfaces. The nano-wear properties were measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The presence of the fluorinated monolayers was found to enhance the wear properties of the silicon surfaces, with a decrease of the depth of wear scratches of up to 120 times as compared to the unmodified surface. Ultimately, the scratch depth was only 6 nm for a heptadecafluoro-alkyl based monolayer for scratching normal forces as high as 38 μN.