Silicon wafers, comparison with glass

DePalma and Tillman investigated self-assembled monolayer films from three silanes, tridecafluorooctyltrichlorosilane, undecyltrichlorosilane, and octadecyl-trichlorosilane, on silicon, a popular model substrate for such studies with great relevance to potential semiconductor coating applications. They characterized the films by ellipsometry and contact angle measurements (data for trideca-fluorooctyltrichlorosilane are included in Table 1), but more usefully from an applicational viewpoint, they carried out friction and wear measurements with a pin-on-disk device where the silicon wafer substrate, coated with monolayer, is moved under a spherical glass slider. Optical microscopy was used to assess wear. Table 2 summarizes DePalma and Tillman s data and their comparison with the classical self-assembled monolayer friction studies of Levine and Zisman [18]. 

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