Invited Paper SE-TuM3
Applications of Porous Thin Films Fabricated by Glancing Angle Deposition

Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 8:40 am, Room 617

Considerable efforts have been made by a number of research groups to advance the Glancing Angle Deposition (GLAD) technique in order to achieve precisely engineered and porous thin film structures. Carefully controlled substrate motion and glancing incidence evaporative flux enable fabrication of regular and random arrays of metals, semiconductors and insulators in architectural shapes such as posts, chevrons and helices. After a brief overview of the GLAD process and some advanced fabrication algorithms, this presentation will highlight some recent advances in applications of these coatings, in particular their use in sensor devices. Porous nanostructures of insulator materials have been deposited over planarized interdigitated electrodes and demonstrate fast (100 ms) response in conjunction with capacitive detection. Optical filters have been fabricated with the GLAD process to produce spectral hole or narrow bandpass characteristics ideal for optical detection through shift of the transmission peak. These filters have also been chemically functionalized to alter their sensitivity. Ag nanostructures will be presented that utilize surface plasmon resonance absorption for optically based sensing of biochemical compounds. For these and other applications, GLAD provides the advantages of broad material choice and precise control of microstructure shape and degree of porosity.