Cysteamine-Based Functionalization of InAs Surfaces: Revealing the Critical Role of Oxide Interactions in Biasing Attachment

Attaching functional molecules such as thiols and proteins to semiconductor surfaces is increasingly exploited in functional devices such as sensors. Despite extensive research to understand this interface and demonstrate a robust protocol for attachment, the bonding chemistry of thiolates to III-V surfaces has been under great debate in the literature. This study provides a comprehensive chemical model for the attachment of thiols to InAs, an increasingly device-relevant III-V semiconductor, using cysteamine as a model molecule. We examine the attachment of cysteamine to InAs via the thiol group using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry and confirm that thiolate bonding to the substrate occurs preferentially to As sites over In sites as a limit These experiments explore the interplay of the native oxide chemical properties, the cysteamine concentration, and the evolving InAs surface chemistry with functionalization. The thiol-InAs interaction can be framed as a general acid-base reaction, where the nucleophilic and/or electrophilic attack of the surface (i.e., binding to In sites and/or As sites) depends on the acidity of the thiol. The roles of the initial oxide composition, the solvent of the functionalizing solution, and the cysteamine as a limiting reagent in fully displacing the oxide and creating In-S and As-S bonds are highlighted.