Formation of Nanostructures through Combination of Self-assembling Materials

摘要

The fabrication of surfaces with nanometer-scale is considerable interest for a wide range of applications in electronic, magnetic, chemical, and biological sensors. In this work, we seek to find out new yet simple way to nanofabrication via sequential applications of two different self-assembling materials. Block copolymer, one class of self-assembling materials, spontaneously self-assemble into various structures on the nanometer scale. Colloidal particles are another type of self-assembling materials, which produces highly ordered colloidal crystals via self-assembly driven by capillary force or convection flow. Here, nanopatterns generated by colloidal lithography and plasma etching technique are used to control nanostructure of block copolymers in thin film. First, colloidal particles are deposited on the substrate to form colloidal crystal, and then block copolymers are coated on colloidal crystals so that they are able to guide block copolymer self-assembly. Combination of two self-assembling materials with variation in characteristic size of templates will be shown to lead to the morphological change of block copolymers.