Fabrication of Ordered Gold Nano Dot Array by Nano Plastic Forming and Self-Assembly

Abstract

A new fabrication method of ordered metal nano dot array is developed by using coating, nano plastic forming (NPF) and self-assembly due to annealing. In this study, the combination of these processes is studied to produce uniformly-sized and ordered gold nano dot array on a quarts glass substrate experimentally. The results reveal that patterning of lattice grooves on the gold-coated substrate with the NPF is effective to obtain the ordered gold nano dot array. In the proposed fabrication process, the size of the gold nano dot can be controlled by adjusting pitch of the groove. Furthermore, to investigate the effect of the NPF on the dot ordering, the multi-phase-field simulation of the self-assembly of the gold thin-film during the annealing is performed. From the simulation results, it is revealed that the grooves formed by the NPF become a starting point for the dot-formation during the annealing and the surface patterning by the NPF plays an important role for the fabrication of the ordered nano dot array.