Adsorption and film growth of N-methylamino substituted triazoles on copper surfaces in hydrocarbon media

The adsorption of benzotriazole (BTA), tolyltriazole (TTA) and two different N-methylaminosubstituted triazoles on copper surfaces in hydrocarbon media has been examined by in situ ellipsometry and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS). All four triazoles were found to form films and from the ellipsometric study were the film thicknesses estimated to be in the range of 0.5–2 nm after 1000 min exposure time. The layers formed from BTA and TTA were thicker (up to 2 nm) than the layers from N-aminomethyl substituted triazoles (roughly 0.5 nm). Desorption was studied qualitatively and 20% or less of the adsorbed material were found to desorb. The ToF-SIMS study showed that while BTA and TTA adsorbed intact did the N-aminomethyl substituted triazoles appear to loose their aminomethyl tails on binding since only signals corresponding to triazole moieties of the compounds were detected.