Electrodeposition of gold templated by patterned thiol monolayers

Graphical abstract: - Highlights: • First demonstration of electrodeposition/lift-off of gold using thiol monolayers. • Microelectrode structures with large length to width ratio were generated. • Performance of two different patterning techniques was investigated. • Conditions for achieving good contrast in the electrodeposition were established. - Abstract: The electrochemical deposition of Au onto Au substrates modified by self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) was studied by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Patterned SAMs exhibiting electrochemical contrast were prepared by two different methods. One used microcontact printing (μCP) to generate a binary SAM of ω-(4′-methyl-biphenyl-4-yl)-propane thiol (CH₃-C₆H₄-C₆H₄-(CH₂)₃-SH, MBP3) and octadecane thiol (CH₃(CH₂)₁₇SH, ODT). Templated by the SAM, a gold microelectrode structure was electrodeposited featuring a line 15 μm wide and 3 mm long. After transfer to an epoxy substrate the structure proved to be electrically conductive across the full length. The other patterning method applied electron beam lithography (EBL) where electrochemical contrast was achieved by crosslinking molecules in a single component SAM of MBP3. An electron dose above 250 mC/cm² results in a high deposition contrast. The choice of parameters for the deposition/lift-off process is found to be more critical for Au compared to Cu studied previously. The origin of the differences and implications for nanoscale patterning are discussed.