Periodic TiO₂ Nanostructures with Improved Aspect and Line/Space Ratio Realized by Colloidal Photolithography Technique.

This paper presents substantial improvements of the colloidal photolithography technique (also called microsphere lithography) with the goal of better controlling the geometry of the fabricated nano-scale structures-in this case, hexagonally arranged nanopillars-printed in a layer of directly photopatternable sol-gel TiO₂. Firstly, to increase the achievable structure height the photosensitive layer underneath the microspheres is deposited on a reflective layer instead of the usual transparent substrate. Secondly, an increased width of the pillars is achieved by tilting the incident wave and using multiple exposures or substrate rotation, additionally allowing to better control the shape of the pillar's cross section.