Glancing angle deposition meets colloidal lithography: a new evolution in the design of nanostructures

Abstract

The combination of colloidal lithography and glancing angle deposition facilitates a new powerful fabrication technique – shadow sphere lithography (SSL), which can greatly expand the variety and complexity of nanostructures fabricated using simple evaporation and colloidal monolayer templates. Their applications have been widely investigated in plasmonics and associated fields. Here, we present an overview of the principle of SSL, followed by different strategies of utilizing SSL to design various nanostructures by changing the nanosphere monolayer masks, deposition configurations, different ways to combine deposition and etching, etc. Typical nanostructures fabricated by SSL, including nanorods on nanospheres, patchy nanospheres, nanotriangles, nanoring, nanocrescents, etc., are introduced. Recent optical applications of these plasmonic nanostructures are also summarized. It is expected that this review will inspire more ingenious designs of plasmonic nanostructures by SSL for advanced and smart applications.

Sub-second and ppm-level optical sensing of hydrogen using templated control of nano-hydride geometry and composition

“…The flexibility of the GLAD technique allows the realization of different nanopatterns of patchy array sample by adjusting the polar and azimuthal angle of deposition onto the packed nanosphere monolayers (Supplementary Figs. 2 −3) 42 . Here, we utilize θ = 70°, 80°, and 85° with constant azimuthal rotation (fixed t Pd = 15 nm) to engineer the morphology and VSR of NPs.…”

“…However, the general trend of creating faster absorption kinetics was observed when the VSR and/or t Pd was reduced. Additionally, we highlight that the VSR may be further optimized to achieve even shorter response time by other nanoparticle forms, such as nano-fan 42 , which can be created by modifying depositions onto packed nanosphere monolayers with different polar and azimuthal angles.…”

Long- and Short-Range Ordered Gold Nanoholes as Large-Area Optical Transducers in Sensing Applications

“…The top-down, unconventional lithographic techniques described above are particularly interesting for the fabrication of nanoplasmonics systems (i.e., metal nanoantennas and nanohole (NH) arrays) [29][30][31][32][33]. In particular, metallic NH arrays are being widely studied to get a basic understanding and optimization of their optical, as well as their applications in several fields (for instance, sub-wavelength photolithography [34,35], nonlinear optics (interferometric plasmonic lensing) [36,37], surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) [38,39], surface-enhanced fluorescence spectroscopy [40][41][42], and especially as chemical sensors and biosensors [28,[43][44][45][46][47]).…”

Breaking the symmetry of nanosphere lithography with anisotropic plasma etching induced by temperature gradients

“…54,55 In fact, depositions of different materials, such as metals and metal oxides 56,57 by vertical and oblique angle depositions have been successfully explored in both high/ultrahigh systems, such as electron beam and thermal evaporation, and low vacuum systems, such as direct current sputtering and chemical vapor deposition. [58][59][60] However, these approaches are limited in scope as they are based on similar masks where the symmetry has not been overcome. Indeed, no one has explored temperature gradients as the key-enabling parameter to control mask shapes.…”