Sticky solution helps shrink electrical and optical devices

The research, from the University of Minnesota, Argonne National Laboratory and Seoul National University, is published in Nature Communications.

Combining several standard nanofabrication techniques - and low-tech adhesive tape - researchers at the University of Minnesota created extremely thin gaps through a layer of metal and patterned these gaps over the entire surface of a four-inch silicon wafer.

According to the University of Minnesota, the smallest gaps were one nanometre wide, which is said to be much smaller than most researchers have been able to achieve. In addition, the widths of the gaps could be controlled on the atomic level, thereby providing the basis for producing new and better nanostructures that are at the core of advanced electronic and optical devices.

One of the potential uses of nanometre-scale gaps in metal layers is to shine light into spaces much smaller than is otherwise possible. Collaborators at Seoul National University, led by Prof Dai-Sik Kim, and Argonne National Laboratory, led by Dr. Matthew Pelton, showed that light could readily be shone through these gaps, even though the gaps are hundreds or even thousands of times smaller than the wavelength of the light used.