Nanolitography based on electrospun and etched nanofibers

Abstract

In this study, we propose a new type of nanolithography procedure to fabricate orderly patterned metallic nanostructures using the electrohydrodynamic method and the reactive ion etching process. The electrohydrodynamic process parameters were tuned so as to create patterning with precision, and fibers in nanoscale on silver-coated substrates. We also studied reactive ion etching with different durations on the well-patterned samples. The experiments show that applying a voltage of 400 V resulted in straight patterned fibers with a diameter of 208.7 ? 30.3 nm. The statistical analysis on scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showed a significant difference in the diameter of the fibers fabricated at 400 V compared to those at 500 V and 600 V. We also confirm that the etching process has no affect on the fiber diameter. Moreover, electron dispersive X-Ray spectrometer (EDX) results suggest that an etching duration of 7 min is sufficient to remove the silver coating that is not covered with the fibers, and protect the silver nanostructures underneath the fibers. Utilizing a lowcost nanolithography procedure, we obtain the orderly patterned silver nanostructures for possible integration into miniaturized devices.