Abstract
Nanopatterning to fabricate advanced nanostructured materials is a widely employed technology in a broad spectrum of applications going from spintronics and nanoelectronics to nanophotonics. This work reports on an easy route for nanopatterning making use of ordered porous templates with geometries ranging from straight lines to square, triangular or rhombohedral lattices, to be employed for the designed growth of sputtered materials with engineered properties. The procedure is based on large-scale nanoimprinting using patterned low-cost commercial disks, as 1-D grating stamps, followed by a single electrochemical process that allows one to obtain 1-D ordered porous anodic templates. Multiple imprinting steps at different angles enable more complex 2-D patterned templates. Subsequently, sputtering facilitates the growth of ferromagnetic antidot thin films (e.g., from 20 to 100 nm Co thick layers) with designed symmetries. This technique constitutes a non-expensive method for massive mold production and pattern generation avoiding standard lithographical techniques. In addition, it overcomes current challenges of the two-stage electrochemical porous anodic alumina templates: (i) allowing the patterning of large areas with high ordering and/or complex antidot geometries, and (ii) being less-time consuming.
Highlights
Nanopatterning to fabricate advanced nanostructured materials is a widely employed technology in a broad spectrum of applications going from spintronics and nanoelectronics to nanophotonics
Regarding the fabrication of porous anodic alumina (PAA), this concept was successfully applied for the preparation of ordered nanoporous alumina templates after an anodization process of prepatterned aluminum substrates that were previously imprinted by a SiC master mold prepared by electron beam lithography [23], or alternatively by Si3 N4 [24,25] or nickel [26]
The main objective of this work has been the development of a methodology for the fabrication of large-scale and low-cost PAA nanostructured templates with well-defined order and versatile complex geometries
Summary
The use of templates has been widely exploited for the fabrication of micro- and nanostructured materials. Regarding the fabrication of PAA, this concept was successfully applied for the preparation of ordered nanoporous alumina templates after an anodization process of prepatterned aluminum substrates that were previously imprinted by a SiC master mold prepared by electron beam lithography [23], or alternatively by Si3 N4 [24,25] or nickel [26]. We have demonstrated that the patterns of these molds can be successfully transferred onto an Al substrate by single or multiple imprint processes and can achieve complex 1- or 2-dimensional well-controlled alumina templates These templates can be suitably employed as precursors of long-range nanopatterned structures for applications in nano-electronics, spintronics or nano-photonic devices. Nanostructures by Combined Imprint and with low cost and reducedLarge time-consuming production
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