Nanoparticle fabrication by geometrically confined nanosphere lithography

Abstract. Arrays of metal nanoparticles, typically gold or silver, exhibit localized surface plasmon resonance, a phenomenon that has many applications, such as chemical and biological sensing. However, fabrication of metal nanoparticle arrays with high uniformity and repeatability, at a reasonable cost, is difficult. Nanosphere lithography (NSL) has been used before to produce inexpensive nanoparticle arrays through the use of monolayers of self-assembled microspheres as a deposition mask. However, control over the size and location of the arrays, as well as uniformity over large areas is poor, thus limiting its use to research purposes. In this paper, a new NSL method, called here geometrically confined NSL (GCNSL), is presented. In GCNSL, microsphere assembly is confined to geometric patterns defined in photoresist, allowing high-precision and large-scale nanoparticle patterning while still remaining low cost. Using this new method, it is demonstrated that 400 nm polystyrene microspheres can be assembled inside of large arrays of photoresist patterns. Results show that optimal microsphere assembly is achieved with long and narrow rectangular photoresist patterns. The combination of microsphere monolayers and photoresist patterns is then used as a deposition mask to produce silver nanoparticles at precise locations on the substrate with high uniformity, repeatability, and quality.