Abstract
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely adopted imaging and surface analysis technique that provides resolutions on the nanometer scale. AFM tip-based nanomachining has recently been adopted for the fabrication of arbitrarily shaped nanoscale structures. A major challenge of using AFM tip-based machining for the sculpting of nanoscale plasmonic structures is the build-up of displaced material along the sides of the channels. Here we apply this nanomechanical machining method to create active plasmonic elements and present the strategy we have been using to avoid the formation of such debris. Furthermore, a number of post-manufacturing treatments that can potentially be used to reduce the amount of debris surrounding the fabricated structures are discussed.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Irish Centre for High-end Computing, ICHEC, for the permission to use their large, shared memory node for the simulations presented here and the Science Foundation Ireland for awarding us with the prestigious Special Future Innovator Prize under Grant No. SFI 18/FIP/3551R.
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Funding was provided by Science Foundation Ireland (Grant No. SFI 18/FIP/3551R).
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Barron, C., O’Toole, S. & Zerulla, D. Fabrication of Nanoscale Active Plasmonic Elements Using Atomic Force Microscope Tip-Based Nanomachining. Nanomanuf Metrol 5, 50–59 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41871-021-00121-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41871-021-00121-7