High-fidelity and clean nanotransfer lithography using structure-embedded and electrostatic-adhesive carriers

Gan, Zhuofei1,2; Cai, Jingxuan1,3; Sun, Zhao1; Chen, Liyang1; Sun, Chuying1; Yu, Junyi4; Liang, Zeyu4; Min, Siyi1,5; Han, Fei5; Liu, Yu5; Cheng, Xing5; Yu, Shuhui4; Cui, Dehu2; Li, Wen-Di1

2023-01-09

10.1038/s41378-022-00476-x

Microsystems & Nanoengineering   Impact Factor & Quartile

2055-7434

2055-7434

Metallic nanostructures are becoming increasingly important for both fundamental research and practical devices. Many emerging applications employing metallic nanostructures often involve unconventional substrates that are flexible or nonplanar, making direct lithographic fabrication very difficult. An alternative approach is to transfer prefabricated structures from a conventional substrate; however, it is still challenging to maintain high fidelity and a high yield in the transfer process. In this paper, we propose a high-fidelity, clean nanotransfer lithography method that addresses the above challenges by employing a polyvinyl acetate (PVA) film as the transferring carrier and promoting electrostatic adhesion through triboelectric charging. The PVA film embeds the transferred metallic nanostructures and maintains their spacing with a remarkably low variation of < 1%. When separating the PVA film from the donor substrate, electrostatic charges are generated due to triboelectric charging and facilitate adhesion to the receiver substrate, resulting in a high large-area transfer yield of up to 99.93%. We successfully transferred the metallic structures of a variety of materials (Au, Cu, Pd, etc.) with different geometries with a < 50-nm spacing, high aspect ratio (> 2), and complex 3D structures. Moreover, the thin and flexible carrier film enables transfer on highly curved surfaces, such as a single-mode optical fiber with a curvature radius of 62.5 mu m. With this strategy, we demonstrate the transfer of metallic nanostructures for a compact spectrometer with Cu nanogratings transferred on a convex lens and for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) characterization on graphene with reliable responsiveness.

SCI

English

Others

Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region["17207419","17209320","C7018-20G","AoE/P-701/20"] ; University of Hong Kong["202011159235","202010160046"] ; Shenzhen Government[K20799112]

Science & Technology - Other Topics ; Instruments & Instrumentation

Nanoscience & Nanotechnology ; Instruments & Instrumentation

WOS:000911747100001

SPRINGERNATURE

2-s2.0-85146542834

Web of Science

1.Univ Hong Kong, Dept Mech Engn, Hong Kong, Peoples R China
2.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Microelect, Shenzhen, Peoples R China
3.Sun Yat Sen Univ, Sch Biomed Engn, Guangzhou, Peoples R China
4.Chinese Acad Sci, Shenzhen Inst Adv Elect Mat, Shenzhen Inst Adv Technol, Shenzhen, Peoples R China
5.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Mat Sci & Engn, Shenzhen, Peoples R China

Gan, Zhuofei,Cai, Jingxuan,Sun, Zhao,et al. High-fidelity and clean nanotransfer lithography using structure-embedded and electrostatic-adhesive carriers[J]. Microsystems & Nanoengineering,2023,9(1).

Gan, Zhuofei.,Cai, Jingxuan.,Sun, Zhao.,Chen, Liyang.,Sun, Chuying.,...&Li, Wen-Di.(2023).High-fidelity and clean nanotransfer lithography using structure-embedded and electrostatic-adhesive carriers.Microsystems & Nanoengineering,9(1).

Gan, Zhuofei,et al."High-fidelity and clean nanotransfer lithography using structure-embedded and electrostatic-adhesive carriers".Microsystems & Nanoengineering 9.1(2023).