Fabrication of nano-gold islands with μm spacing using 2.5 dimensional PDMS stamps

• Published in: Microelectronic engineering Vol. 85; no. 5-6; pp. 1346 - 1349
• Main Authors: Schwinger, Wolfgang, Lausecker, Elisabeth, Bergmair, Iris, Grydlik, Martyna, Fromherz, Thomas, Hasenfuß, Christine, Schöftner, Rainer
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.05.2008; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Gold islands; Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy; Microcontact printing; Nano-contact printing; Nano-islands; nCP; Physics; Scanning probe microscopes, components and techniques; μCP; Gold islands; nCP; Microcontact printing; Nano-islands; Nano-contact printing; μCP; Scanning electron microscopy; Fluorescence; Two dimensional model; Aspect ratio; Readout electronics; Nanocontacts; Contact printing; pCP
• ISSN: 0167-9317; 1873-5568
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mee.2008.01.039

Gold islands with diameters in the range of several tens of nanometers with μm spacing may act as binding sites for adapter molecules used for single molecule detection using optical fluorescence readout. Microcontact printing (μCP) using PDMS stamps and alkanethiol chemistry is a straightforward method for the structuring of gold layers. When using binary two dimensional (2D) stamps the softness of the elastomer limits the useable aspect ratio and it was shown that nm-sized features with μm spacing cannot be replicated with binary PDMS stamps. To bypass this limitation we used 2.5 dimensional PDMS stamps with pyramidal shaped topography to fabricate sub-100nm gold islands with a spacing of 6μm on areas of several square millimeters. The masters, the stamps and the resulting gold structures were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).