Periodic large-area metallic split-ring resonator metamaterial fabrication based on shadow nanosphere lithography.

A fast and cheap, large-area (>1 cm(2)), high-coverage fabrication technique for periodic metallic split-ring resonator metamaterials is presented, which allows control of inner- and outer-ring diameters, gap angles, as well as thickness and periodicity. This method, based on shadow nanosphere lithography, uses tilted-angle-rotation thermal evaporation onto Langmuir-Blodgett-type monolayers of close-packed polystyrene nanospheres. Excellent agreement of the process parameters with a simplified model is demonstrated.

Fabrication of nanoscale rings, dots, and rods by combining shadow nanosphere lithography and annealed polystyrene nanosphere masks.

The application of shadow nanosphere lithography for the preparation of large-area, two-dimensional, metallic nanostructures of different shape is described. Through changing the mask morphology by temperature processing and varying the evaporation conditions, particles with morphologies such as rings, rods, and dots have been produced. This process allows outstanding control of the size and morphology of the particles.