Two-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations of ionic and nonionic silane self-assembly on hydrophilic surfaces

Aqueous chemistries have recently been shown to be useful for the deposition of hydrophobic films of nonionic and cationic silanes on hydrophilic substrates for the prevention of stiction in MEMS. The Monte Carlo method is used to simulate in two dimensions the self-assembly of silane films on a hydrophilic surface. We investigate the impact of charged group in cationic silane on the overall structure of the films. We characterize the film structure with spatial pair correlations at each molecular layer of the deposited films. The simulations reveal long-range correlations for the film of cationic silanes. Based on our two-dimensional simulations, we report an average "most probable" structure for the films of nonionic and cationic silanes.