Formation of Nanopore-Arrays by Plasma-based Thin FilmDeposition
The ability to fabricate membranes with arrays of apertures only a few nanometers in diameter are important to many fields of research, including ion beam lithography, DNA sequencing, single ion implantations, and single molecule studies. Because even the state-of-the-art lithography tools are limited in their ability to produce nanoscale features, alternative methods of fabricating single pores of nanometer scale have been developed, using ion-beam sculpting and focused-ion-beam assisted deposition. However, these methods cannot simultaneously produce multiple holes of nanometer dimension. Here we report a means of forming arrays of nanopores simultaneously on a thin, solid-state membrane using plasma-based thin-film deposition. By depositing layers of metallic thin films, the aperture sizes of pores in a pre-fabricated membrane can be reduced from a couple of micrometers down to tens of nanometers and even smaller. The technique offers a way to reduce the sizes of aperture of any shape in a variety of substrate materials, both conducting and insulating. Such arrays of nanopores can serve as membrane channels for DNA sequencing, as masks in ion-beam imprinters, for the fabrication of quantum dots, and in other applications.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Director, Office of Science
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 932785
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-57321; R&D Project: Z2ISM2; TRN: US200814%%757
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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