Three-dimensional nanofabrication via proximity field nanopatterning and its applications

Abstract

Proximity field nanopatterning (PnP) offers a new route to fabricate various three-dimensional (3D) nano-structures using elastomeric and conformable phase masks in a single exposure step. Light passing through a transparent binary mask with surface relief structures generates complex 3D intensity distribution in photopo-lymer. Many advantages of PnP such as single step, scalability to large areas, sub-wavelength resolution, vi-bration tolerance and experimental simplicity make this method attractive for real world applications includ-ing photonics, energy devices, bioengineering, and many others. The key components of PnP are phase masks and photosensitive materials. This thesis describes the optimization of phase mask designs (i.e., relief depth, material) for improving the quality of 3D nanostructures and the extension of patterning capabilities by adopting a new photosensitive material that has completely different patterning mechanisms compared to conventional photopolymerization. We provide simple applications relate to optical coatings that involve systematic analysis of optical transmission behavior from multidimensional nanostructures patterned by PnP, potentially applicable to antireflection or highly scattering coatings. Finally, we suggest some of significant applications with high potential to PnP, such as 3D electrodes for high-performance energy devices and mechanically enhanced 3D nanomaterials.