Fabrication of a well-ordered nanohole array stable at room temperature.
We report on the fabrication of a new type of nanotemplate surface consisting of a hexagonally well-ordered array of one monolayer deep holes with a tunable size of about 4 nm (2) and a fixed spacing of 7 nm. The nanohole array fabrication is based on the strain-relief trigonal network formed in the 2 monolayer Ag on Pt(111) system. Removing about 0.1 ML of the Ag top layer of this surface structure, for example, by He- or Ar-ion sputtering, leads to the formation of nanoholes at specific domains of the trigonal network, which are stable at room temperature.
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Feuerwerkerstrasse 39, 3602 Thun, Switzerland. Kamel.Ait-Mansour@empa.ch
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Aït-Mansour
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Buchsbaum
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Ruffieux
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Schmid
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Gröning
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Varga
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Fasel
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Gröning