Fabrication of Gold Nanodot Array on Plastic Films for Bio-sensing Applications

In this paper, authors propose a new method to fabricate metal nanodot array on a plastic film. This process comprises three steps; firstly, a substrate is deposited with metal. Then, a nanodot array is formed on the substrate surface by thermal dewetting. Finally, the nanodot array is transferred to a plastic film. Using the proposed method, gold nanodot array is fabricated on epoxy films. Furthermore, in this paper, the effects of process parameters such as annealing temperature, substrate material and plastic material on dot transfer ratio to a plastic film are studied. The mechanism of dot transfer from a substrate to a plastic film is also discussed in details. The transfer ratio increases as the annealing temperature is higher. Silicon substrate results slightly higher contact angle and transfer ratio than quartz glass substrate. Araldite rapid epoxy decreases transfer ratio while SpeciFix-20 epoxy increases transfer ratio when the annealing temperature is higher. Highest transfer ratios of 95% and 87% were achieved when transferring nanodot array from silicon substrate and quartz glass substrate to Araldite rapid epoxy film, respectively. Highest transfer ratio of 91% was achieved when transferring nanodot array from quartz glass substrate to SpeciFix-20 epoxy.