Chemical routes to two-dimensional photonic crystal sensors equipped with nano/microcavities
Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry
Final Report Abstract
The performance of 2D photonic crystal sensors can be significantly improved by incorporating nano/microcavities. Nowadays, such sensors are fabricated using top-down methods. To reduce the cost of providing these sensors, bottom-up strategies are highly interesting. The goal of this project was to develop a purely chemical method for fabricating 2D photonic crystal sensors with micro/nanocavities. To this end, a combination of soft colloidal lithography and metal supported etching of silicon substrates was investigated. Colloidal masks of stimuli-responsive hydrogel microgels were used to create loosely packed, hexagonally ordered arrays that served as templates for fabricating periodic hole arrays in gold films and gold nanodisk arrays on silicon substrates. The gold nanostructures were used for metal-assisted etching of the silicon substrate, allowing 2D photonic crystal sensors to be realized. By exploiting the exceptional properties of the mask material, namely hydrogel microgels, the diameters of the etched structures could be locally controlled. A general proof of principle for the proposed strategy to fabricate 2D photonic crystal sensors with micro/nanocavities was provided. However, the incorporation of individual micro/nanocavities into 2D photonic crystal sensors using this approach could not be demonstrated within the scope of this project.
Publications
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Poly-N-isopropylacrylamide colloidal arrays as templates for droplet-assisted fabrication of plasmonic nanostructure patterns. American Chemical Society (ACS).
Balderas-Valadez, Ruth Fabiola; Nagel, Alessandro; Kanehira, Yuya; Bald, Ilko & Pacholski, Claudia
