3:45 PM - 4:00 PM
▲ [13p-2C-7] Nanosphere Template Lithography for the Fabrication of Aluminum Plasmonic Antenna
Keywords:Aluminum,Antenna
The use of aluminum (Al) in plasmonics has garnered significant attention recently due to its UV optical properties and low material costs. UV plasmonic materials may be useful in the sensing of biological molecules as many biomolecules natively fluoresce at these low wavelengths. One challenge associated with Al plasmonic particles is that they can be difficult to fabricate. While electron beam lithography has been used to fabricate aluminum nanoantenna, it is an expensive technique for the fabrication of structures over large areas. Here we have developed a method for the fabrication of a range of different plasmonic structures using a variation of nanosphere template lithography (NTL). While NTL has been used to fabricate plasmonic gold and silver structures, its use in Al has been limited to hole arrays. By using a sacrificial copper mask with NTL we have developed a method that allows for the fabrication of disks, ellipsoids, and crescent shaped structures over large surfaces. These structures exhibit plasmon resonances that can be tuned from the NIR down to the UV by adjusting template size. These structures have the potential to be used in surface enhanced spectroscopies that utilize low wavelengths of light such as surface enhanced fluorescence and UV surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.