Size- and Shape-Controlled Fabrication of Large-Area Periodic Nanopillar Arrays

Abstract

A simple process for the fabrication of large-area well-ordered periodic nanopillar arrays have been developed based on a combination of colloidal lithography and etching techniques. Large-area nanopillar arrays have been successfully fabricated by this approach. The lateral dimensions of nanopillars as small as 40 nm and the aspect ratio as high as 7:1 have been achieved. Our results indicate that it is possible to control the size, shape, and height of nanopillar arrays by fine-tuning the etching recipes. These periodic nanopillar arrays can be used as stamps for nanoimprinting lithography and contact printing lithography to produce more complex periodic nanostructures.

Polymeric nanopillar arrays for cell traction force measurements

“…Nanosphere lithography [14,15] uses the self-assembly of monodisperse colloidal nanoparticles to produce silicon nanostructures with tunable size and shape and feature sizes smaller than 10 nm [16,17]. These nanostructures have been used as stamps in nanoimprint lithography [18] used for replication.…”

Bottom-Up Assembly and Applications of Photonic Materials

“…These include, but are not limited to, nanotriangles [61,62], nanodots [61,68,72], nanopillars [63,65,69,[73][74][75][76], nanorods [68], nanopyramids [64], nanorings [68,77], nanowells/ bowls [67,69] and inverted nanocones [78]. Vogel et al described a simple process of using oxgen plasma etching to modify a close packed monolayer of polystyrene beads into a non-closed packed monolayer ( Figure 5) [45].…”

Colloidal Lithography

“…Chen et al have fabricated silicon nanopillar arrays with diameters as small as 40 nm and aspect ratios as high as seven [93]. The size and shape of the nanopillars can be controlled by the size and shape of the sputtered aluminum masks, which are again determined by the feature size of the colloidal mask and the number of the colloidal layers.…”