| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Thin Film | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session TF-WeM |
| Session: | Thin Film and Nanoparticle Growth and Characterization |
| Presenter: | P. Kruse, McMaster University, Canada |
| Authors: | P. Kruse, McMaster University, Canada S. Singh, McMaster University, Canada |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
We have previously shown that electropolishing of tantalum in concentrated acid mixtures can reproducibly lead to very flat surfaces with dimples tens of nanometers in diameter, regular in shape, monodispersed in size and arranged in highly ordered arrays which even transverse grain boundaries. In this work, we are demonstrating the anodic growth of nanometer thick, detachable, amorphous tantalum oxide films with tuneable morphology (porosity) on these surfaces. Large (sqcm) sections of these flexible tantalum oxide films can be separated as sheets from the base tantalum surface by a Lift- Off-Float-On technique. The sheets can then be transferred to a wide variety of substrates, like Si wafers, glass slides, TEM grids etc. We have thoroughly characterised the films and are studying their growth conditions with the intention of gaining even better control over their morphology. Potential applications include nanotechnology, photonics and catalysis.