Nanostructured surfaces from size-selected clusters

The deposition of ionized beams of size-selected atomic clusters onto well-defined substrates represents a new method of preparing nanostructured surfaces, with lateral feature sizes in the range 1-10 nm. 'Pinning' of the incident clusters prevents the diffusion of the clusters on the surface, and thus preserves the gas-phase cluster size, even at room temperature and above. At the same time, advances in diblock copolymer techniques allow the preparation of ordered two-dimensional arrays of clusters. Here we discuss the creation and applications of these nanostructured surfaces, ranging from the fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures to the immobilization of protein molecules.