E-beam lithography processing of Au-nanowire contacts for development of gas sensors based on tungsten-oxide nanorods self-assembled on mica

摘要

This work describes the processing of Au nanowire arrays on insulating substrate developed to contact tungsten-oxide nanorods self-organised on the mica surface. The combination of electron beam lithography in scanning electron microscope and lift-off process is shown to be effective in fabricating nanocontact finger patterns with a line width of about 270 nm and 400 nm on bare and WO_3 nanorod covered mica surfaces, respectively, separated by a few micrometre distance. It is shown that at right selection of the distance between Au nanowires, the applied procedure makes possible to contact WO_3 nanorods of different length and density even if the nanostructures do not form an interconnected net. It opens the way for fabrication of single-wire nanosensors grown on insulating substrates.