Jing,

Will your Al surface be metallic or will it have a native oxide?  If it
has an oxide and you can hydrolyze the surface then Boris is right.  If
you're starting with a metallic surface (about the only way you could do
this is an all vacuo process) you would want to start with a
metalorganic compound (probably dimethoxy aluminum with a nice
hydrophobic pendant chain).

Unless super hydrophobicity is important I'd probably use a
non-fluorinated straight chain repeater.  My favorite is
octadecyltrichlorosilane, you'll get a water contact angle of above 100
degrees for a quality film.

-Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Boris Kobrin
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 10:59 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: 'Boris Kobrin'
Subject: RE: [mems-talk] help for self-assembled hydrophobic monolayer

Hi Jing,

You may use perfluorinated chlorosilanes (for example, FDTS or FOTS).
The
best results (surface quality, repeatability) are obtainable from the
vapor
phase process. Please let me know if you need additional information.

Boris Kobrin, Ph.D.
Director of Technology
Applied Microstructures, Inc.
1020 Rincon Circle, San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 594-0654
[email protected]



Message: 6
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 16:31:31 -0800
From: "Jing Xue" 
Subject: [mems-talk] help for self-assembled hydrophobic monolayer
To: [email protected]
Message-ID:
        <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Dear all,

i am looking for some information of the self-assembled hydrophobic
monolayer for metal of Aluminum. Can anyone provide some information
on this, such as the chemical and process for the monolayer?