Variants of nanosphere lithography and fabrications of non-closed-packed array of nanoparticles

Abstract

AbstractWe report the fabrication of a non-closed packed array of nanoparticles that utilizes the self-assembly of uniformly sized microspheres on the surface of a Si substrate followed by reactive ion etching (RIE). In addition we investigated the effect of tilting the sample at 45A? with the horizontal at as well as varying the flow rates of the etching gas in altering the morphology of the microspheres. The resultant patterned Si substrates were also further utilized as templates for directed-assembly of unique arrangements of microspheres with different diameters. In addition, we developed three variants of Nanosphere Lithography (NSL). Firstly, by annealing the array of gold nanoparticles at increasing temperatures, we report the systematic change in the size and morphology of the particles. Secondly, by reactive-ion etching the mask prior to the deposition of gold and subsequently annealing, we obtained gold nanoparticles that were nestled in a??nanoporesa??. Lastly, we develop the method of creating bi-metallic nanoparticles via NSL.