Nanostructured electronic devices, such as those based on graphene, are typically grown on top of the insulator SiO2. Their exposure to a flux of small size-selected silver nanoparticles has revealed remarkably selective adhesion: the graphene channel can be made fully metallized while the insulating substrate remains coverage-free. This conspicuous contrast derives from the low binding energy between the metal nanoparticles and a contaminant-free passivated silica surface. In addition to providing physical insight into nanoparticle adhesion, this effect may be of value in applications involving deposition of metallic layers on device working surfaces: it eliminates the need for masking the insulating region and the associated extensive and potentially deleterious pre- and postprocessing.
@article{arxiv.2307.06407,
title = {Substrate-Selective Adhesion of Metal Nanoparticles to Graphene Devices},
author = {Patrick J. Edwards and Sean Stuart and James T. Farmer and Ran Shi and Run Long and Oleg V. Prezhdo and Vitaly V. Kresin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.06407},
year = {2023}
}