Conducting micro-and nanotubes and free-standing flexible helical microcoils have been fabricated from strained Ge x Si 1−x /Si heterolayers. The fabrication technique was based on self-rolling of a thin highly strained epitaxial Ge x Si 1−x /Si bifilm detached from the substrate by selective etching of a sacrificial layer in a roll-shaped tube. The obtained tube diameters varied from 10 nm to 13 µm, depending on the thickness and lattice mismatch of the GeSi/Si bilayer. GeSi/Si tubes and helical coils, up to 70 nm in diameter, exhibit good conducting properties and high mechanical strength.

We report on hybrid microtubes and rings fabricated from rolled-up strained metal–semiconductor SiGe/Si/Cr and metal–insulator–semiconductor SiGe/Si/SixNy/Cr films. For making suspended microtubes, a method of directional rolling of the patterned films by anisotropic underetching of silicon substrate was introduced. It is shown quantitatively that Cr and SixNy layers are highly strained, the tensile stress being sufficient to cause the rolling-up of the hybrid films into microtubes of preset diameter. The proposed controllable and reproducible technology is promising for fabricating cylindrical-shaped microcapacitors, induction coils, transistors, and building blocks of microelectromechanical devices.

Electromagnetic metamaterials opened the way to extraordinary manipulation of radiation. Terahertz (THz) and optical metamaterials are usually fabricated by traditional planar-patterning approaches, while the majority of practical applications require metamaterials with 3D resonators. Making arrays of precise 3D micro- and nanoresonators is still a challenging problem. Here we present a versatile set of approaches to fabrication of metamaterials with 3D resonators rolled-up from strained films, demonstrate novel THz metamaterials/systems, and show giant polarization rotation by several chiral metamaterials/systems. The polarization spectra of chiral metamaterials on semiconductor substrates exhibit ultrasharp quasiperiodic peaks. Application of 3D printing allowed assembling more complex systems, including the bianisotropic system with optimal microhelices, which showed an extreme polarization azimuth rotation of 85° with drop by 150° at a frequency shift of 0.4%. We refer the quasiperiodic peaks in the polarization spectra of metamaterial systems to the interplay of different resonances, including peculiar chiral waveguide resonance. Formed metamaterials cannot be made by any other presently available technology. All steps of presented fabrication approaches are parallel, IC-compatible and allow mass fabrication with scaling of rolled-up resonators up to visible frequencies. We anticipate that the rolled-up meta-atoms will be ideal building blocks for future generations of commercial metamaterials, devices and systems on their basis.

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