Guided Self-Assembly of Fe3O4 Nanoparticles on Chemically Active Surface Templates Generated by Electro-Oxidative Nanolithography

An approach for the site-selective binding of magnetic Fe3O4 particles onto predefined surface templates is reported. Chemically active surface patterns are prepared by electro-oxidative nanolithography performed with the conductive tip of a scanning probe microscope on n-octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) monolayers self-assembled on silicon. The chemical functionalization allows prefabricated nanoparticles with an organic ligand shell to attach selectively on these surface sites, just by immersing the sample into the particle solution. Besides the use of the active surface patterns to guide the assembly of Fe3O4 nanoparticles with nanometer precision, several aspects of the patterning process are briefly discussed in terms of optimization of the obtainable line width.