Two-stage Atomic Layer Deposition of Smooth Aluminum Oxide on Hydrophobic Self-assembled Monolayers

morphologies. The structural integrity of the CH 3-SAMs was also found to be disturbed substantially at the onset of the ALD process with H 2 O. In order to improve the surface morphology of AlO x on CH 3-SAM surfaces, a two-stage ALD process was developed. In the two-stage ALD process for AlO x , the first stage utilized n-propanol as the oxygen source and the second stage proceeded with H 2 O. The optimized two-stage ALD process significantly improved the surface morphology of AlO x films and effectively protected the structural integrity of underlying CH 3-SAMs.