Spontaneous formation of periodic nanostructures by localized dynamic wrinkling

Micro/nanoscale periodic structures are widely used in display, optics and bio industries as key functional elements. We present a novel nanopatterning method, localized dynamic wrinkling (LDW), which creates micro/nanoscale metal gratings continuously by simply sliding a flat edge of a hard material over a thin metal surface coated on a polymer layer. The LDW process presented in this paper is an etching- and template-free nanopatterning technology based on nanoscale wrinkling phenomenon. This simple process enables spontaneous formation of large-area metal gratings with controllable periodicity from micrometer down to 120 nm.