Nano gold template formed by using duv lithography process

• Main Author: Ng, Hwee Shiang.
• Other Authors: Tang Xiaohong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Nanoelectronics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/40050
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Nanowires have been greatly researched in recent years as many see its potential in the future applications. There are many ways in fabricating nanowires and one of which is via vapor liquid solid (VSL) method. This technique makes use of metallic catalyst to aid its growth into nanowire. The catalyst plays a very important role as it would directly characterize the nanowire that would be formed. Among all catalyst for the used for the growth of nanowire, gold (Au) has been widely used as it is very active and applicable for different types of catalytic reactions. Furthermore, several researches have reported that most of the semiconductor nanowires have been successfully grown with the use of gold nanoparticles. There are currently many methodologies to form catalyst. Dewetting thin film deposited on substrate is a common and neat technique which many are using. Thin film is deposited onto the substrate formed by annealing. However, despite its advantages, easy and neat method, it usually produces nanoparticles of with size of broad distribution and the nanoparticles are not orderly formed. In this project, a nano template of circular Au pad of different dimension is created using Deep UV lithography process. The template is then annealed using furnace so to allow the Au film to dewet into small particles. The process conditions such as annealing temperature, thickness of the film, pad dimension and annealing time are varied in aim to obtain the optimized conditions for the growth of the nano gold template.