Shear Patterning of Microdominos: A New Class of Procedures for Making Micro- and Nanostructures

摘要

This paper describes the preparation of fields of micrometer-scale pillars (microdominos), and the tipping of these pillars onto their sides by shearing. Previously, the repositioning of micrometer-scale features has focused on the use of surface tension forces to bring features out-of-plane (e.g., mirrors in microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS), or to align in-plane features. Figure 1 illustrates our approach schematically, and gives a representative result showing the uniformity of the process. This process provides a route to repetitive 3D microstructures that would be difficult or impossible to prepare by conventional microanolithography. Since the top surfaces of these pillars can be coated with nanometer-thick films by evaporation, tipping also provides a method of generating regular arrays of features with nanometer-scale lateral dimensions in-plane. Although the use of thin-film deposition techniques to generate features with functional, nanoscale edges is well established, this method provides a simple route to arrays of nanoscale edges that can be addressed electrically.