SAMs is a thin film coating technology that’s quickly gaining traction in research and industrial settings alike. This coating method addresses a wide variety of application spaces that are not addressed by other technologies. Like ALD films, SAMs films are conformal, easily coat ultra high aspect ratio features, and use a small, economical amount of precursor to deposit a film. Unlike ALD, SAMs films consist of a single monolayer coating, and one SAMs film is deposited by a single precursor pulse.

There is a large universe of SAMs materials available for deposition, which includes the entire family of organosilanes and thiols. Access to these precursors unlocks new thin film possibilities and application areas. These precursors are generally inexpensive, and the process by definition indicates low usage of materials.

Both SAMs and ALD films can be deposited in Cambridge NanoTech’s Savannah ALD system . Adding the SAMs upgrade to a Savannah is an easy and simple process that expands the research and work capabilities of the system.

SAMs applications include:

• Permeation coating for flexible electronics
• Nanostructure functionalization
• Organic thin film transistor (gate dielectrics, contacts)
• Anti-stiction for MEMS and NEMS
• Cell adhesion / protein adsorption
• Large surface area surface coating for permeation / wettability control