A Study on Fabrication Process of Gold Microdisk Arrays by the Direct Imprinting Method Using a PET Film Mold

Potejana Potejanasak

doi:10.3390/cryst11121452

Abstract

In this study, an efficient nanofabrication process of metal microdisk arrays using direct imprinting was developed. This process was comprised of three steps; sputter etching on the quartz glass substrate, gold thin film deposition on an etched surface of a substrate, and transfer imprinting using a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film mold on the Au thin film. A new idea to utilize a PET film mold for disk patterning by the nano transfer imprinting was examined. The PET film mold was prepared by thermally embossing the pillar pattern of a master mold on the PET film. The master mold was prepared from a silicon wafer. The PET film mold was used for transfer imprinting on a metal film deposited on a quartz substrate. The experimental results revealed that the PET film mold can effectively form gold micro-disk arrays on the Au film despite the PET film mold being softer than the Au film. This method can control the distribution and orientation of the nano-arrays on the disk. The plasmonic properties of the gold micro-disk arrays are studied and the absorbance spectrum exhibit depends on the distribution and orientation of gold micro-disk patterns. The nano-transfer imprinting technique is useful for fabricating metallic microdisk arrays on substrate as a plasmonic device.

Highlights

Noble metallic nanostructures exhibit unique optical properties, such as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). This LSPR occurs in metallic nanoparticles when the electrons on the nanodot arrays are excited by a specific wavelength of the visible light region
Since the position and magnitude of the extinction spectrum are sensitive to shifts in the local environment caused by the chemical molecules adsorbed onto surface of metallic nanoparticles, the nanostructure can serve as transmission-based biosensor [6]
The results shown that the average distance between the center of the pillars was 4000 nm, the average diameter was approximately

Summary

Introduction

Noble metallic nanostructures exhibit unique optical properties, such as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). This LSPR occurs in metallic nanoparticles when the electrons on the nanodot arrays are excited by a specific wavelength of the visible light region. The spectral characteristics of LSPR depend on the design, dimension, orientation, shape, and arrangement of the metallic nanostructures [1,2,3]. Metal nanostructures can be used as an optical plasmonic biosensors, for example, for virus detection [4,5]. Since the position and magnitude of the extinction spectrum are sensitive to shifts in the local environment caused by the chemical molecules adsorbed onto surface of metallic nanoparticles, the nanostructure can serve as transmission-based biosensor [6]

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Conclusion