Thursday, 13th September 2007 (3225 views)

Soft interference lithography (SIL) is a fabrication technique which allows for the "inexpensive" production of large sheets of gold films with patches of nanoscale holes, it has been reported.

According to Physorg.com, reporting research from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the SIL technique offers a number of advantages over current techniques such as the ability produce large quantities of a product.

The nanomanufacturing technique produces gold films with holes 500-1,000 times smaller than a human hair which on a magnified scale resemble Swiss cheese, NSF claims.

"One of the biggest problems with nanomaterials has always been their 'scalability'. This research is exciting not only because it demonstrates a new type of patterning technique that is cheap, but also one that can produce very high quality optical materials with interesting properties," commented Teri Odom, leader of the research.

Meanwhile, Harsh Deepak Chopra, NSF programme manager, said that the work is "extremely promising" and implies the creation of a new generation of optical devices.

 

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