Fabrication of nanostructure by physical vapor deposition with glancing angle deposition technique and its applications

Abstract

Abstract.A nanostructural thin film is one of the highly exploiting research areas particularly in applications in sensor, photocatalytic, and solar-cell technologies. In the past two decades, the integration of glancing-angle deposition (GLAD) technique to physical vapor deposition (PVD) process has gained significant attention for well-controlled multidimensional nanomorphologies because of fast, simple, cost-effective, and mass-production capability. The performance and functional properties of the coated thin films generally depend upon their nanostructural compositions, i.e., large aspect ratio, controllable porosity, and shape. Such structural platforms make the fabricated thin films very practical for several realistic applications. We therefore present morphological and nanostructural properties of various deposited materials, which included metals, i.e., silver (Ag), and oxide compounds, i.e., tungsten oxide (WO 3 ), titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ), and indium tin oxide (ITO). Different PVD techniques based on DC magnetron sputtering and electron-beam evaporation, both with the integrated GLAD component, were discussed. We further explore engineered nanostructures which enable controls of optical, electrical, and mechanical properties. These improvements led to several practical applications in surface-enhanced Raman, smart windows, gas sensors, self-cleaning materials and transparent conductive oxides (TCO).

Micro Nano Manufacturing Methods for Chemical, Gas and Bio Sensors, Water Purification and Energy Technologies

“…During fabrication, sensor materials are usually deposited onto the IDE using micro-nano deposition technologies such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), pulse laser deposition (PLD), physical vapor deposition (PVD) and magnetron sputtering technique [25][26][27]. These technologies are physical methods which have been reported to offer thin and homogenous film surface with excellent gas, chemical and bio molecule sensing properties.…”

“…These techniques are expensive and regarded as state of the art method which required specialized equipment like photolithography (PL), plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and electron beam lithography (EBL). The methods offer patterned deposition of nanostructures such as nanowires, nano-rods, nano-tubes etc., high precision contacting, highly aligned printing and deposition onto flexible substrates as advantages over others [25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

Indium Oxide Based Nanomaterials: Fabrication Strategies, Properties, Applications, Challenges and Future Prospect

“…Indium oxide based nanostructured thin films have great significance owing to their variable band gap energy (3.2-3.8 eV) with high visible transparency, substantial environmental and chemical stability as well as high electron mobility and metal-like electrical conductivity [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. These nanostructured thin films have been fabricated ( Table 2) with excellent optical and electrical properties towards various applications [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. However, the thin films are mostly used as TCOs [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”

“…Among other thin film fabrication techniques such as sputtering, CVD, ALD, PVD, spray pyrolysis and ink-jet printing, sol-gel technique is become a convenient one where high chemical and environmental stabilities of the nanomaterials can be obtained [34][35][36][37][38]. Sol-gel coating techniques can be applicable to deposit a huge numbers of high-performance nanostructured IO based thin films including ITO, IZO, IZGO, ZIO, IAO, Sb-doped IO, Cd-ITO, Cr-ITO for various applications [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. A schematic diagram as shown in Figure 2 where IO based thin films by sol-gel coating technique is described.…”

“…A commonly used method for IO based thin film deposition is PVD in which the coating generates onto a substrate through atom by atom [41]. The PVD involves the atomization or vaporization of material from a solid source called target [41]. In this technique, the substrate majorly influences the properties of thin film.…”