Controlled molecular adsorption on silicon: laying a foundation for molecular devices

This review is about understanding and controlling organic molecular adsorption on silicon. The goal is to provide a microscopic picture of structure and bonding in covalently attached molecule-silicon surface systems. The bias here is that an unprecedented, detailed understanding of adsorbate-surface structures is required in order to gain the control necessary to incorporate organic function into existing technologies or, eventually, to make new molecule-scale devices. A discussion of recent studies of adsorbate structure is presented. This includes simple alkenes, polyenes, benzene, and carene adsorbed on Si(100). Also included is a discussion of wet chemical procedures for forming alkyl and alkoxy covalently functionalized silicon. These discussions are presented together with comments on the related issues of adsorption dynamics and nano-scale manipulation in an effort to point the way toward principles and procedures that will allow the hybrid properties of organic molecules and surfaces to be harnessed.