I was wondering if anyone had any information on a replacement
conductive substrate of similar cost to TEC-15 glass. I have been helping a
few chemical engineers who are trying to grow nanoarrays on this substrate,
and they are running into some problems with the crystal structure, mostly
due to the horrible topography of the TEC15. I haven't seen actual SEM
images yet, but I've been told it looks terrible. I believe its tin oxide or
dioxide coating with F doping, at a thickness of 4000 angstroms or something
like that, and I think it's done by CVD. I suggested that they use ITO but I
don't have a WHOLE lot of experience with evap coatings, and am unsure of
price or quality. I worked with a company that did evaporative coatings(ITO,
Chrome, Ti, Au), but i'm not 100% sure that the ITO would be smooth at all,
as we did not have an SEM for characterization of the coating. I do know
that the deposition rates are much lower for evap, which leads me to believe
that it would be a smoother coating in general.
The features being grown on the substrate are approximately 100nm in
diameter i believe and 8 microns tall, very high aspect ratio.

As an aside, any way to mechanically polish the current TEC-15 substrate
would also be a suitable solution. My guess is that it would be some sort of
a diamond powder, or something with a grain size on the order of 30nm, maybe
silica?, but i don't know what to or where to purchase it.

Thank you all very much,

David Casale
Drexel University & Max Levy Autograph