Abstract
Even prior to the recent advent of advanced top-down processes, shadowing growth by oblique angle deposition (OAD) has long been providing self-assembled nanostructures over much larger areas for much lower costs. In the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the development of well-controlled three-dimensional nanomorphologies such as zigzags and helixes. Much effort has been put into theoretical and numerical understanding of the growth mechanism to improve morphology. Many researchers in academia have been investigating useful properties of nanocolumnar thin films in their laboratories. However, most companies seem hesitant to introduce OAD techniques into the factory, owing to the prejudice that the OAD thin films are neither durable nor reproducible. The progress in OAD technology for practical applications is reviewed and discussed.
Highlights
The excellent textbook authored by Lakhtakia and Messier[1] teaches us that today’s major thin film deposition technologies, such as sputtering[2] and thermal evaporation,[3] originated in the middle of the 19th century
If we can control the internal nanomorphology in a well-reproducible manner, various useful properties might be added to the existing functionalities owing to the materials’ own properties
The advanced functionalities of oblique angle deposition (OAD) films are well understood in academia, there seems to be prejudice in the industry that OAD thin films are neither durable nor reproducible
Summary
The excellent textbook authored by Lakhtakia and Messier[1] teaches us that today’s major thin film deposition technologies, such as sputtering[2] and thermal evaporation,[3] originated in the middle of the 19th century. Thin film technologies have matured to the extent that thin films can be deposited over very large areas with excellent uniformity.[4,5] In most recent practical thin films, functionalities originating from the materials’ own properties and uniformity, without internal structures larger than the nanometer scale, are well established. If we can control the internal nanomorphology in a well-reproducible manner, various useful properties might be added to the existing functionalities owing to the materials’ own properties. Lithographic technologies are significantly developed, it is still difficult to form three-dimensional (3-D) nanomorphologies over large areas at low cost. In the past few years, very new products produced by the OAD technique have appeared on the market, including a substrate for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy[6,7,8] and a low-reflectivity wire-grid polarizer.[9,10] In this article, we discuss the practicability of OAD thin films and examples of the products produced by the OAD technique
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