Templated assembly of metal nanoparticles in nanoimprinted patterns for metal nanowirefabrication

Abstract

We have developed a new method that combines nanoimprint lithography and metalnanoparticle solution processing for fabricating metal nanowires. A polymer template withnanoscale features, fabricated by nanoimprint lithography, provided physical reservoirswhich were filled with a silver nanoparticle solution during the spin-coating. After thelift-off process, the defined silver nanoparticle patterns were annealed to enhance theconductivity for use as electrodes. Silver nanowire patterns (500 nm linewidth with a300 nm gap) were fabricated without using an expensive high-vacuum system formetal deposition. This method demonstrated pattern resolution enhancementcompared with ink-jet printing which inherently suffers from ink spreading on thesubstrate surface. By using this method, organic thin film transistors composed of thesolution-processed silver source/drain electrodes with a channel length of 300 nm werefabricated and showed comparable behaviors to those with vacuum-depositedelectrodes.