Patterning of silver on the micro- and nano-scale by local oxidation using air plasma

Abstract

A novel low temperature micro- and nano-patterning approach of metal silver thin films is demonstrated. The process involves local deposition of carbon mask created in situ using the e-beam of scanning electron microscope followed by radio frequency air plasma oxidation. We show that by selecting the appropriate experimental conditions, silver can be transformed locally from metallic to nanoporous oxide. Etching the oxide phase in ammonia solution allows obtaining metal silver patterns. We further show that this approach is not limited to thin films but can be rather extended to nanowires which allows creating periodic metal/metal oxide nanojunctions.