DYNAMIC TEMPLATING: A NEW PATHWAY FOR THE ASSEMBLY OF LARGE-AREA ARRAYS OF PLASMONIC, MAGNETIC AND SEMICONDUCTOR NANOMATERIALS

Abstract

Substrate-based nanostructures are of great importance due to their applications in microelectronic devices, chemical sensors, catalysis and photovoltaics. This dissertation describes a novel fabrication technique for the formation of periodic arrays of substrate-based nanoparticles. The prescribed route, referred to as dynamic templating, requires modest levels of instrumentation consisting of a sputter coater, micrometer-scale shadow masks and a tube furnace. The route has broad applicability, having already produced periodic arrays of gold, silver, copper, platinum, nickel, cobalt, germanium and Au-Ag alloys on substrates as diverse as silicon, sapphire, silicon-carbide, and glass. The newly devised method offers large-area, high-throughput capabilities for the fabrication of periodic arrays of sub-micrometer and nanometer-scale structures and overcomes a significant technological barrier to the widespread use of substrate-based templated assembly by eliminating the need for periodic templates having nanoscale features. Because this technique only requires modest levels of instrumentation, researchers are now able to fabricate periodic arrays of nanostructures that would otherwise require advanced fabrication facilities.