Fabrication and applications of ultraflexible nanostructures using dielectric heating-assisted nanoimprint on PVC films

We developed dielectric heating-assisted nanoimprint method for rapid fabrication of ultraflexible nanostructures. Using spin-coating polyvinyl-chloride (PVC) film on the glass slide, the dielectric heating on PVC film helped the pattern transfer from the mold to PVC film in few seconds. Various kinds of nanostructures were successfully made on PVC films with about 20-μm thickness. We demonstrated the applications of ultraflexible metallic nanostructures for bending measurement using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) on the curved surfaces. For measuring bending angles using SPR on capped nanowire arrays, the minimum detection angle was 2.4 × 10−3 degree under 0.02 nm wavelength resolution. For SERS measurement, the nanorod arrays on a curved substrate can increase SERS signals for two times as compared to planar SERS substrate.