Some characteristics of silica‐based structures—like the photonic properties of artificial opals formed by silica spheres—can be greatly affected by the presence of adsorbed water. The reversible modification of the water content of an opal is investigated here by moderate heating (below 300 °C) and measuring in situ the changes in the photonic bandgap. Due to reversible removal of interstitial water, large blueshifts of 30 nm and a bandgap narrowing of 7% are observed. The latter is particularly surprising, because water desorption increases the refractive index contrast, which should lead instead to bandgap broadening. A quantitative explanation of this experiment is provided using a simple model for water distribution in the opal that assumes a nonclose‐packed fcc structure. This model further predicts that, at room temperature, about 50% of the interstitial water forms necks between nearest‐neighbor spheres, which are separated by 5% of their diameter. Upon heating, dehydration predominantly occurs at the sphere surfaces (in the opal voids), so that above 65 °C the remaining water resides exclusively in the necks. A near‐close‐packed fcc arrangement is only achieved above 200 °C. The high sensitivity to water changes exhibited by silica opals, even under gentle heating of few degrees, must be taken into account for practical applications. Remarkably, accurate control of the distance between spheres—from 16 to 1 nm—is obtained with temperature. In this study, novel use of the optical properties of the opal is made to infer quantitative information about water distribution within silica beads and dehydration phenomena from simple reflection spectra. Taking advantage of the well‐defined opal morphology, this approach offers a simple tool for the straightforward investigation of generic adsorption–desorption phenomena, which might be extrapolated to many other fields involving capillary condensation.

We report the fabrication and performance of a surface plasmon resonance aluminum nanohole array refractometric biosensor. An aluminum surface passivation treatment based on oxygen plasma is developed in order to circumvent the undesired effects of oxidation and corrosion usually found in aluminum-based biosensors. Immersion tests in deionized water and device simulations are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the passivation process. A label-free bioassay based on biotin analysis through biotin-functionalized dextran-lipase conjugates immobilized on the biosensor-passivated surface in aqueous media is performed as a proof of concept to demonstrate the suitability of these nanostructured aluminum films for biosensing.

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We demonstrate that standard polycarbonate compact disk surfaces can provide unique adhesion to Al films that is both strong enough to permit Al film nanopatterning and weak enough to allow easy nanopatterned Al film detachment using Scotch tape. Transferred Al nanohole arrays on Scotch tape exhibit excellent optical and plasmonic performance.

A non-chemically amplified negative-tone electron-beam resist with an extremely high sensitivity is presented in this work. The resist, poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-2-methacrylamidoethyl methacrylate) (P(HEMA-co-MAAEMA)), has been synthesized using free radical polymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and 2-aminoethyl methacrylate, and exhibits a crosslinking threshold dose as low as 0.5 mC cm À2 . Exposed resist patterns show good adherence to silicon substrates without the assistance of adhesion promoters or thermal treatments and are shown to be adequate for use as a mask for both wet and dry etching of Si. A low contrast value of 1.2 has been measured, indicating that the synthesized polymeric mixture is particularly suitable for achieving grey (3D) lithography. Other relevant properties of the new e-beam resist are optical transparency, visible photoluminescence when crosslinked at low electronic doses, and dose-dependent dual-tone behaviour.