Langmuir-Blodgett films of C60 and C60O on Silicon: Islands, rings and grains

We show that monolayer-high islands of C₆₀ and C₆₀O can be transferred from Langmuir films on a water or phenol sub-phase to oxide-terminated Si(111) substrates. Faceted islands, in some cases incorporating a foam-like morphology reminscent of that previously observed for Langmuir films at the water-air interface using Brewster angle microscopy, are formed and transferred using small amounts (100-400 μl) of low concentration (of order 10^− 5M) solutions of C₆₀ (or C₆₀O) with low target pressures (~ 10 mN/m). However, worm-like monolayer domains are also observed under identical experimental conditions, indicating the key role that inhomogeneous solvent evaporation plays in the formation of two-dimensional fullerene aggregates on the subphase surface. While Langmuir-Blodgett multilayers of C₆₀ and C₆₀O are both granular, there are significant morphological differences observed between the molecular thin films. In particular, C₆₀O multilayers contain a relatively high density of ring (or “doughnut”) features with diameters in the 100-300 nm range which are not observed for C₆₀. We attribute the origin of these features to dipolar or hydrogen bonding-mediated interactions between the C₆₀O molecules at the water surface.