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Fabrication of Periodic Gold Nanocup Arrays Using Colloidal Lithography
Published on: September 2, 2017
Plasmonic nanostructures fabricated using nanosphere-lithography, soft-lithography and plasma etching
Manuel R Gonçalves1, Taron Makaryan, Fabian Enderle
1Ulm University, Institute of Experimental Physics, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology
|October 18, 2011
Summary
We developed two low-cost methods for fabricating plasmonic nanocavities using nanosphere lithography. These techniques create arrays of hemispherical or triangular structures, enabling applications in light confinement and absorbance.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
- Optics
Background:
- Plasmonic nanostructures are crucial for manipulating light at the nanoscale.
- Efficient and scalable fabrication methods are needed for advanced optical applications.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present two cost-effective fabrication routes for plasmonic nanocavities using nanosphere lithography.
- To investigate the optical properties of the fabricated structures.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication via soft-lithography to create metal-coated epoxy hemispheres.
- Fabrication via reactive ion etching (RIE) using metal-evaporated colloidal crystals as masks, followed by epoxy casting to create inverted triangular holes.
- Optical characterization through measurement of reflectance and transmittance spectra.
Main Results:
- Both methods successfully produced large arrays of nanocavities at low cost.
- Metal-coated hemispheres showed wavelength-dependent reflectivity, correlating with hemisphere size.
- Etched structures on quartz exhibited low reflectance and transmittance across measured wavelengths, indicating high absorbance.
Conclusions:
- The developed methods offer scalable and affordable routes to plasmonic nanocavities.
- The fabricated structures demonstrate tunable optical properties, suitable for light confinement applications.
