Surface Nanopatterning of Metal Thin Films by Physical Vapor Deposition onto Surface-Modified Silicon Nanodots

One of the most active research topics within the nanoscience and nanotechnology fields are those related to large-scale fabrication, in an accurate manner, of nanostructured metal thin films [1]. This interest is due to their potential applications for different technological purposes such as electrocatalysis [2] and optical devices [3]. In order to obtain these nanostructured films different techniques, such as ion sandblasting [4] or nanotransfer printing [5], have been developed. In this work we present results on the largescale preparation of nanostructured metal thin films from surface-modified silicon nanodots templates [6]. The nanopatterning process is based on the deposition of a copper thin film (approximately 300nm thick) by physical vapor deposition on nanostructured silicon substrates [7], which were previously surface-modified with an octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer in order to promote an easy metal film detachment after deposition. Once the 300 nm thick film has been deposited, a thick (10 mm approximately) film of copper is electrodeposited onto it to improve the mechanical properties of the physically-deposited nanostructured thin film. Thanks to the very low adhesion of OTS layer to the metal film the latter is easily mechanically detached from the template, leading to a surface nanostructure corresponding to the negative replica of the original nanopatterned silicon template. This metal nanopatterning strategy shows potential applications for accurate large-scale fabrication of nanostructured metal thin films.

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