Non‐spherical colloidal nanoparticles have great potential for applications owing to their enhanced directional properties. However, the lack of methods to precisely assemble them on surfaces has hindered exploitation of their properties for planar devices. Here, the oriented assembly of short gold nanorods with lengths below 100 nm from colloidal suspensions is demonstrated. A locally induced phase transition confines the colloidal nanorods at a receding three‐phase contact line that is controllably moved over a nanostructured surface in a capillary assembly process. Dedicated topographical trapping sites allow for aligned assembly of the nanorods on the single‐particle level. The feasibility of this method is demonstrated by assembling nanorods into long‐range‐ordered, non‐close packed arrays that could serve as anti‐counterfeit labels by virtue of their distinct optical appearance in the far‐field. Furthermore, oriented nanorod dimers that are deterministically assembled have the potential to function as nano‐plasmonic antenna devices.

We have used a temperature sensitive polymer film as a removable template to position, and align, gold nanorods onto an underlying target substrate. Shape-matching guiding structures for the assembly of nanorods of size 80 nm × 25 nm have been written by thermal scanning probe lithography. The nanorods were assembled into the guiding structures, which determine both the position and the orientation of single nanorods, by means of capillary interactions. Following particle assembly, the polymer was removed cleanly by thermal decomposition and the nanorods are transferred to the underlying substrate. We have thus demonstrated both the placement and orientation of nanorods with an overall positioning accuracy of ≈10 nm onto an unstructured target substrate.

Capillary assembly was explored for the precise placement of 25 nm × 70 nm colloidal gold nanorods on prestructured poly(dimethylsiloxane) template surfaces. The concentration of nanorods and cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), the template wettability, and most critically the convective transport of the dispersed nanorods were tuned to study their effect on the resulting assembly yield. It is shown that gold nanorods can be placed into arrayed 120-nm diameter holes, achieving assembly yields as high as 95% when the local concentration of nanorods at the receding contact line is sufficiently high. Regular arrays of gold nanorods have several benefits over randomly deposited nanorod arrangements. Each assembled nanorod resides at a precisely defined location and can easily be found for subsequent characterization or direct utilization in a device. The former is illustrated by collecting scattering spectra from single nanorods and nanorod dimers, followed by subsequent SEM characterization without the need for intricate registration schemes.

We developed a microfluidic chip setup for capillarity-assisted particle assembly (CAPA). A capillary bridge is formed between the aperture of a silicon chip and the assembly template. The bridge is fed with particle suspension through a microfluidic channel on the chip top side. With this setup, we can control the particle assembly location and tune the suspension composition during particle assembly. In this note, we describe the chip setup, the CAPA process using the microfluidic chip, and results of complex particle assemblies, such as composite particle arrays and particle gradients, that could not be obtained using a conventional CAPA setup.

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We present a method to characterize surface-chemical properties of gold nanocrystals. Spherical, 60 nm gold nanocrystals were immobilized on quartz substrates by a coupling agent and cleaned in a hydrogen plasma. The nanocrystals were then functionalized with alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of varying chain lengths by adsorption from the gas phase, and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectroscopy was performed on the samples. Depending on the alkanethiol chain length, the adsorption of the SAM redshifted the LSPR to different extents, in accordance with Mie theory. SAM thickness differences below 1 nm could be easily resolved. Our results demonstrate that LSPR spectroscopy can be applied to characterize thin organic layers on dry supported gold particles with high sensitivity.

In 3D chip stacks, heat dissipation through wiring layers and the bonding interface contributes to the total temperature gradient. The effective thermal impedance of micro solder-ball arrays filled with a poorly-conducting silica underfill can be as high as 30 K*mm2/W, three times the value of a thermal grease interface. Efforts to improve the underfill conductivity to 5 W/(m*K) are underway, which would translate into in a significant interface-resistance reduction. To achieve thermal conductivities >1 W/(m*K), alumina particles were introduced in capillary underfills at particle loadings above the percolation threshold, but at these loading levels the high viscosity of the resulting underfill no longer permits capillary filling. We propose a novel sequential gap-filling method. Particles are suspended in a carrier fluid at a low concentration (0.1 vol%). Using forced convection, the suspension is injected into the cavity formed between the IC dies by the C4 array. A filter element at the cavity outlet triggers particle accumulation in the cavity. The particles form a percolation network with an effective thermal conductivity of >1 W/(m*K). Next an evaporation step removes the carrier fluid, and the exposed pores between the particles are refilled with a particle-free adhesive using capillary forces. Finally, the matrix is cured at 65 °C. 10x10 mm2 standard and micro-C4 cavities (>30 μm) can be completely filled in 2 min at 0.2 bar, resulting in a homogeneous volumetric fill of 36%. Percolation was identified by SEM inspection. For the micro-C4 arrays filler particles of < 10 μm were used. Uniform particle filling is precluded because of the longer filling time due to the small pore sizes. Particle trapping sites are introduced to form local stacks that provide an additional drainage network to guarantee acceptable filling times. Effective thermal-conductivity values of the percolating thermal underfill method proposed here are reported.

Aligning shape‐anisotropic nano‐objects is a heavily studied topic. , Heiko Wolf and coworkers demonstrate the oriented assembly of gold nanorods with single‐particle resolution. Assembly is achieved from a dense phase of nanorods at the meniscus of an aqueous suspension through capillary forces. The parallel alignment of arrayed gold nanorods becomes evident from their characteristic plasmon colors (red, green) when observed through a polarizer.