Atomically Precise, Low-cost Manufacturing of Plasmonic Nano-Gaps for Chemical Sensing, Health Diagnostics and Optical Communication

用于化学传感、健康诊断和光通信的原子级精确、低成本的等离激元纳米间隙制造

• 批准号: 1635612
• 负责人: Wei Wu
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1635612&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Atomically; Precise; Low; cost; Manufacturing

Plasmonic nanostructures are of great interest because of their ability to concentrate light to a small volume, which can lead to many potential applications. While it is theoretically predicted that the optimal plasmonic hot spot is a gap of less than 1 nanometer between two metallic particles, there is still no manufacturing technology to reliably fabricate it with high-precision and controllability at practical cost. This award will address this key roadblock by combining top-down and bottom-up processes. Patterns are deterministically defined, top-down, and the nano-gap controlled by a spacer layer deposited by atomic layer deposition, bottom-up, which can be controlled with atomic precision. This technology can pattern metallic nano-gaps over large area on arbitrary substrates at high throughput and low cost. If successful, not only will this technology provide a reliable platform to investigate surface plasmon polaritons and gap plasmons, but it will also enable applications in chemical sensing, disease diagnosis and optical communication. Moreover, this project will also be an exemplary showcase to motivate middle and high school students and under-represented minority students to study and pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The findings of this project will be integrated into a nanotechnology curriculum.While plasmonic devices have great application potential, there is no practical fabrication technology that meets the requirements of these devices. The key difficulty is that the sub-1nm metallic gap preferred in these devices is too small for state-of-the-art fabrication technologies. Through this award, we will tackle this challenge by transfer-printing metallic nano-gap structures using a collapsible nano-finger template. The template consists of a flexible nano-finger array and a metallic cap on top of each nano-finger. The entire system of nano-fingers and caps is coated with a spacer layer using atomic layer deposition. After the nano-finger sample is dipped into ethanol and air-dried, the capillary force makes the caps on top of nano-fingers collapse together in pairs. Then those collapsed metallic caps are transferred to the target substrate by transfer printing, and the spacer layer is etched away. In this way the gaps between the transfer-printed metallic caps are exactly twice as thick as the spacer layer. By studying the fundamentals behind this process, a transformative metallic nano-gap manufacturing technology will be developed.

等离子体纳米结构由于其能够将光集中到小体积，这可以导致许多潜在的应用而引起极大的兴趣。虽然理论上预测最佳等离子体激元热点是两个金属颗粒之间小于1纳米的间隙，但仍然没有制造技术以实际成本可靠地制造它。该奖项将通过结合自上而下和自下而上的流程来解决这一关键障碍。图案被确定性地自上而下地限定，并且纳米间隙由通过原子层沉积而沉积的间隔层自下而上地控制，这可以用原子精度来控制。该技术可以在任意衬底上以高产量和低成本在大面积上图案化金属纳米间隙。如果成功，这项技术不仅将为研究表面等离子体激元和间隙等离子体激元提供可靠的平台，而且还将在化学传感，疾病诊断和光通信中应用。此外，该项目也将成为一个示范性的展示，以激励初中和高中学生和代表性不足的少数民族学生学习和追求科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的职业生涯。该项目的研究结果将被整合到纳米技术课程中。虽然等离子体激元器件具有很大的应用潜力，但目前还没有符合这些器件要求的实际制造技术。关键的困难在于，这些器件中优选的亚1nm金属间隙对于最先进的制造技术来说太小了。通过这个奖项，我们将通过使用可折叠的纳米指模板转印金属纳米间隙结构来应对这一挑战。该模板由柔性纳米指阵列和每个纳米指顶部的金属帽组成。纳米指状物和帽的整个系统使用原子层沉积涂覆有间隔层。将纳米指样品浸入乙醇中并风干后，毛细管力使纳米指顶部的帽成对地塌陷在一起。然后，通过转印将那些塌陷的金属帽转移到目标衬底，并且蚀刻掉间隔层。以这种方式，转印金属盖之间的间隙正好是间隔层厚度的两倍。通过研究这一过程背后的基本原理，将开发一种变革性的金属纳米间隙制造技术。

项目成果

Probing Gap Plasmons Down to Subnanometer Scales Using Collapsible Nanofingers

使用可折叠纳米指探测小至亚纳米尺度的间隙等离子体

• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b01468
• 发表时间: 2017-06-01
• 期刊: ACS NANO
• 影响因子: 17.1
• 作者: Song, Boxiang;Yao, Yuhan;Wu, Wei
• 通讯作者: Wu, Wei