Fabrication of ordered nanoring arrays via the footprint of a polymer nanosphere monolayer

Abstract

This work presents a simple and versatile method to fabricate large areas of nanoring arrays by using polymer nanosphere monolayers as templates. The method is based on the observation that arrays of residual ring-shaped footprints would be left on the silicon substrate by directly peeling off the polystyrene nanosphere monolayer. This is proposed to be related to the migration and accumulation of the relaxed polymer molecules from the surface of each nanosphere to the substrate. This process was found to be drastically enhanced by treating the monolayers with an ethanol solution of (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES), since APTES can promote the adsorption of the relaxed surface molecules onto the substrate. The dependence of the final nanoring morphology on treatment time, APTES concentration and size of the template nanospheres has been studied. In addition, this nanoring array fabrication method also works with gold substrates as well as poly (methyl methacrylate) nanosphere templates, implying extendibility to alternative material systems.