Controlling Microarray Feature Spreading and Response Stability on Porous Silicon Platforms by Using Alkene-Terminal...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Ionic liquid/porous silicon (IL/pSi) platforms are promising for sensor development.
• Previous IL/pSi sensors suffered from pattern impermanence and feature spreading.
• A need exists for robust methods to create stable IL patterns on pSi surfaces.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop reversible sensors using IL/pSi platforms with improved pattern stability.
• To introduce a method for directly grafting alkene-terminal ILs (AT-ILs) onto porous silicon.
• To address the issue of IL pattern spreading in sensor applications.

Main Methods:

• Utilized task-specific, alkene-terminal ILs (AT-ILs) for grafting.
• Employed UV-hydrosilylation for direct covalent attachment to hydrogen-passivated porous silicon (ap-pSi).
• Characterized the grafted surfaces using photoluminescence emission (PLE) and Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) imaging.

Main Results:

• Covalent grafting of AT-ILs via UV-hydrosilylation mitigated feature spreading on the ap-pSi surface.
• The method significantly improved the stability of photoluminescence emission (PLE) patterns.
• Contact pin printed IL features remained stable after repeated exposure to toluene vapors.

Conclusions:

• UV-hydrosilylation of AT-ILs onto ap-pSi is an effective strategy for creating stable IL patterns.
• This approach overcomes limitations of previous IL/pSi sensor designs.
• The developed method enables the fabrication of high-fidelity microarray features for robust optical sensory microarrays.