Oxide nanostructures through self-assembly

A prominent theme in inorganic materials research is the creation of unifor mly flat thin films and heterostructures over large wafers, which can subse quently be lithographically processed into functional devices. This letter proposes an approach that will lead to thin film topographies that are dire ctly counter to the above-mentioned philosophy. Recent years have witnessed considerable research activity in the area of self-assembly of materials, stimulated by observations of self-organized behavior in biological systems . We have fabricated uniform arrays of nonplanar surface features by a spon taneous assembly process involving the oxidation of simple metals, especial ly under constrained conditions on a variety of substrates, including glass and Si. In this letter we demonstrate the pervasiveness of this process th rough examples involving the oxidation of Pd, Cu, Fe, and In. The feature s izes can be controlled through the grain size and thickness of the starting metal thin film. Finally, we demonstrate how such submicron scale arrays c an serve as templates for the design and development of self-assembled, nan oelectronic devices. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.