Highly-ordered three-dimensional nanostructure thin films offer substantially increased surface area for attachment of organic layers, and in addition, new detection principles due to the physical properties of the nanostructures. For example, upon material attachment the optical birefringence of the nanostructures changes due to screening of polarization charges. Because of these advantages, highly-ordered three-dimensional nanostructure thin films lend themselves as suitable candidates for studying of organic attachments as well as for low-cost humidity sensing, for example.

We utilize glancing angle electron-beam deposition for fabrication of highly spatially coherent metal slanted columnar thin films. Subsequently, the nanostructures may be further functionalized with thin conformal coatings by means of atomic layer deposition. The ellipsometry model analysis and resulting anisotropic optical properties of hybrid metal slanted columnar thin films determined by generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry in the visible and near-infrared spectral region will be discussed. We will be reviewing research in this area and report in particular on in-situ monitoring of organic attachments using ellipsometry combined with quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation. Exemplarily, we discuss studies of fibronectin protein adsorption, octanethiol chemisorption (self-assembled monolayer growth) on platinum coated titanium slanted columnar thin films as well as relative humidity sensing.

The integration of organic materials and inorganic nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) on the nanoscale offers the possibility of developing new photonic devices that utilize the concept of resonant energy transfer between an organic material and NQDs. Electromagnetic coupling that takes place between excitons—bound electron–hole pairs—at the interfaces of the hybrid composite can be utilized for light-emitting, photovoltaic and sensor applications.

As the key ingredients for the nanocomposite material system reported in this work are the J-aggregates (JA, dye self-assembled molecules) that have exceptional optical absorption due to their strong oscillator strength. NQDs on the other hand combine a variety of important properties, such as high quantum yields, excellent photo- and chemical stability, and size dependent, tunable absorption and emission. Excitation energy transfer in NQDs / J-aggregate hybrids is characterized by their strong excitonic transitions at room temperature with spectrally well-defined absorption and emission.

In order to understand the energy transfer mechanisms in such complex systems, optical properties of JA and NQDs/JA hybrid systems were characterized by means of spectroscopic ellipsometry and polarized IR spectroscopy.

Spectroscopic ellipsometry in 0.6-5 eV spectral range was employed to study optical properties of J-aggregates drop-casted on silicon surfaces. Thin JA films were found to exhibit strong optical anisotropy due to the specific molecular orientation of thin layers on Si substrates. Variation of optical properties due to the deposition of nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) was systematically studied for applications in new photonic devices that utilize excitonic energy transfer from NQDs to JA layer. Ellipsometric results were cross-referenced with atomic force microscopy (AFM) data to derive a quantitative understanding of the distribution of NQDs upon deposition on JA layer. Integration of hybrid colloidal NQD/JA structures could be potentially attractive for a range of optoelectronic applications.

Biosensors are analytical platforms that integrate a biological recognition element with a signal transducer. Because they have the potential to provide rapid, real-time, and accurate results, biosensors have become powerful tools in clinical and biochemical settings. Our group is particularly interested in the development of electrochemical biosensors based on enzymes adsorbed to nanomaterials. When integrated to microfluidic devices, these sensors offer sensitivity, portability, low cost, and the possibility of analyzing turbid samples. Adsorption was selected to immobilize the biorecognition element because it is one of the simplest and most benign methods, avoiding cross-linking reactions or additional components (such as entrapping polymers). Most importantly, as adsorption is a required (and sometimes limiting) step for any immobilization mechanism, the identification of key variables influencing this process can be applied to a variety of strategies. Although several techniques have been used to study the adsorption of proteins to nanomaterials,¹ only a few of them provide information about the kinetics of the process in real time. This is a critical aspect, as most of the post-adsorption conformational changes occur within a few minutes after the interaction.² Among those, reflectometry was used by our group to perform the first kinetic study related to the interaction of proteins with carbon nanotubes.³ These kinetic studies have been recently extended to the interaction of enzymes (D-amino acid oxidase,⁴ catalase,⁵ and glucose oxidase⁶) by variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry, which enabled a more thorough analysis of the interaction process with a much more versatile experimental design.^7,8 The use of VASE demonstrated that a number of variables, (being the amount of enzyme only one of them) can influence the biological activity of proteins adsorbed to the substrate. Furthermore, our results indicate that that the activity of enzymes adsorbed to nanomaterials can be directly related to the kinetics of the adsorption process (dG/dt).⁵

Please see supplemental document for figures and footnotes.

The photochemical properties of titaniumoxide make this a widely studied material. Of special interest is a thin nanostructured layer of such a material. A variety of a nanostructured material is the single sheet titaniumoxide that can be obtained by delaminating a layered titanate, with stochiometry Ti_1-xO₂^-4x (x=0.0875). The slight titanium deficiency leads to a negatively charged nanosheet that can be used as a building block in a layer by layer assembled composite film [1]. In this work we used Langmuir Blodget to deposit succesive thin layers of nanosheets. The electronic properties of these layers were investigated with ellipsometry and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM). The optical spectra show the well known absoprtion peak at 4.6 eV for titaniumoxide nanosheets. The optical spectra can be well modeled with a Cody-Lorentz dielectric function profile providing a bandgap of … eV, a value also found from STM IV spectroscopy. The Cody-Lorentz profile also indicates a slight below band gap light absorption by the nanosheet material.

[1] T. Sasaki, Y. Ebina, T. Tanaka, M. Harada, M. Watanabe and G. Decher, Chem. Mater. 2001, 13, 4661

We obtained a commercial single-side polished LaAlO₃substrate with 2-inch diameter and a (100) pseudo-cubic surface orientation.The surface was polished with an rms roughness below 0.8 nm. We determined the ellipsometric angles ψ and Δ for LaAlO₃ at 300 K from 0.7 to 6.5 eV. For a bulk insulator with a clean smooth surface, the phase change Δ should be zero or π below the band gap. In practice, this never happens, because surfaces are covered with overlayers (adsorbed organic or water vapors). Surface roughness has a similar effect on the ellipsometric spectra as a surface overlayer. Even for an abrupt bulk/air interface, there is a thin (~0.5nm) transition region where the electron wave functions leak from the crystal into the ambient. For the as-received sample, the data were described with a Tauc-Lorentz model for LaAlO₃, plus 2.1 nm of surface layer thickness (described as an effective medium with 50% density of the bulk). After ultrasonic cleaning in acetone, the overlayer thickness decreased to 1.8nm. Next, we mounted the wafer in a UHV cryostat, pumped down to below 10^-8Torr, and acquired an ellipsometric spectrum at 70°. The surface layer thickness was reduced to 1.2 nm, presumably because a part of the adsorbed surface layer (especially water) desorbed under vacuum.

So far, everything worked as expected, but here it gets interesting: We heated the sample to 700 K for about an hour to desorb the remaining surface overlayer. After cooling down to 300 K, we measured the ellipsometric angles again at 70° angle of incidence from 0.7 to 6.5 eV. The ellipsometric angle Δ at 2 eV was reduced to below 0.2°, consistent with a surface layer thickness of less than 1 Å, much less than the surface roughness specified by the supplier (8 Å).

In conclusion, a macroscopically smooth and clean LaAlO₃surface was prepared by ultrasonic cleaning of the wafer in acetone, followed by heating in UHV to 700 K. The resulting surface layer thickness was below 1 Å, as measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry. We will report Tauc Lorentz parameters. We will also describe the temperature dependence of the LaAlO₃dielectric function from 77 to 700 K. This work was supported by NSF (DMR-11104934).

A two-step procedure will be presented for measuring the complex refractive index of an electrochemically produced oxide film on a gold surface. In the first step, the composition and the thickness of the oxide film were determined using angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The experimental composition defined the system, thereby avoiding assumptions about the film stoichiometry that would otherwise be required. The value of thickness derived from these measurements was then used to calculate n and k from ellipsometric data collected across the visible spectrum (350 - 800 nm).