Invited Paper TF+SE-TuM2
Progress in Glancing Angle Deposition Technology for Practical Applications

Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 8:20 am, Room 104

Recently, advanced top-down processes for the fabrication of nanostructures have been developed; however, these processes are long predated by the process of shadowing growth by glancing angle deposition (GLAD), which affords the fabrication of the self-assembled nanostructures over a much larger area at significantly lower costs. In the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the development of 3D nanomorphologies well-controlled by the GLAD such as the zigzag and helix morphologies. Much effort has also been expended to gain a theoretical and numerical understanding of the growth mechanism of nanostructures in order to improve their morphology. Many researches are being carried out in academia to investigate the useful properties of nanocolumnar thin films, such as magnetic anisotropy, birefringence, dichroism, and optical activity induced by nanoshapes; high-performance catalysis and electrodes using large surface area; and various size effects. On the other hand, most companies seem hesitant to introduce the GLAD technique in the factory because of the prejudice that obliquely deposited thin films are not durable and reproducible. However, some products of obliquely deposited thin films are already being manufactured, although their production processes have not necessarily been disclosed. In this presentation, we discuss the previous products and investigations of GLAD thin films and demonstrate that this prejudice can be overcome. In addition, we introduce our recently commercialized products manufactured by GLAD, namely, surface enhanced Raman substrate¹ and low-reflectivity wire-grid polarizers². Because GLAD films have the great potential of enabling humankind to overcome the energy and environmental problems it confronts, it is important to encourage the industry to adopt GLAD by removing the prejudice against GLAD films.

[1] M. Suzuki et al., “Au Nanorod Arrays Tailored for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy,” Analytical Sciences 23, 829 (2007).

[2] M. Suzuki et al., “Low-Reflective Wire-Grid Polarizers with Absorptive Interference Overlayers,” Nanotechnology 21, 175604 (2010).