Fabricating complex three-dimensional nanostructures with high-resolution conformable phase masks.
High-resolution, conformable phase masks provide a means to fabricate, in an experimentally simple manner, classes of 3D nanostructures that are technologically important but difficult to generate in other ways. In this approach, light passing through a phase mask that has features of relief comparable in dimension to the wavelength generates a 3D distribution of intensity that exposes a photopolymer film throughout its thickness. Developing this polymer yields a structure in the geometry of the intensity distribution, with feature sizes as small as 50 nm. Rigorous coupled-wave analysis reveals the fundamental aspects of the optics associated with this method; a broad-range 3D nanostructures patterned with it demonstrates its technical capabilities. A nanoporous filter element built inside a microfluidic channel represents one example of the many types of functional devices that can be constructed.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Beckman Institute and Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1304 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Seokwoo
S
Jeon
Jang-Ung
JU
Park
Ray
R
Cirelli
Shu
S
Yang
Carla E
CE
Heitzman
Paul V
PV
Braun
Paul J A
PJ
Kenis
John A
JA
Rogers