Stevens Researchers Pioneer Novel Technique to Make Plasmonic Nanogap Arrays
Summary
By creating strongly confined electrical fields under optical illumination, these tiny air gaps allow scientists to use the arrays in a variety of applications, particularly in the miniaturization of photonic circuits and ultrasensitive sensing.Dr. Straufs team advanced the HL methodology by using four-beam interference and the concept of a compound lattice to create tunable twin motive shapes into a polymer template, resulting in metallic air gaps down to 7 nm, seventy times smaller than the wavelengths of the blue laser light utilized to write the features.Learn more: www.stevens.edu/ses/physics ### Hoboken, NJ, September 08, 2011 --( PR.com )-- In the quest to exploit unique properties at the nanoscale, scientists at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a novel technique for creating uniform arrays of metallic nanostructures.Nanophotonic circuits, able to transmit huge amounts of information, are considered crucial to bring about the exaflop processing era and a new generation in computing power.Established fabrication techniques for nanogap arrays have focused on serial methods, which are time-consuming, have a low throughput, and are consequently expensive.Dr. Straufs team advanced the HL methodology by using four-beam interference and the concept of a compound lattice to create tunable twin motive shapes into a polymer template, resulting in metallic air gaps down to 7 nm, seventy times smaller than the wavelengths of the blue laser light utilized to write the features.The Stevens scientists extended the utility of HL to create gaps with results comparable to laborious serial fabrication techniques such as electron beam lithography or focused ion beam milling.