Modified colloidal lithography : a flexible tool for fabrication of periodic nanostructures

• Main Author: Mohammadkhani, Ali
• Published: University of Birmingham 2013
• Subjects: 621; TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.577830

This PhD project sets out to investigate the potential of colloidal lithography and explore its application for the creation of highly accurate periodic nanostructures. This research can be classified into three main sections based on the materials used in fabrication. In the first section, fabrication of high precision nanopatterns on a photoresist surface was studied using the inherent potential of polystyrene spheres as lenses. The experiments were conducted to obtain uniform arrays of single and dual nanoholes on a surface of AZ 5214-E photoresist via monolayer and bilayer colloidal lithography, respectively. In the second section, the research intention was to produce uniform arrays of nanostructures by using colloidal lithography, soft lithography and metal deposition. In this section, two different strategies were proposed. The first strategy was mainly devoted to fabricated ordered arrays of periodic nanostructures on the basis of PDMS/PDMS replica moulding. In the third section, nickel electroforming was developed to produce periodic nanostructures through a highly accurate approach. The proposed nanofabrication methods within this research facilitate production of multi-material periodic nanostructures with a high precision and tuneable size.