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Coaxial lithography

Abstract

The optical and electrical properties of heterogeneous nanowires are profoundly related to their composition and nanoscale architecture1,2,3,4,5,6,7. However, the intrinsic constraints of conventional synthetic and lithographic techniques have limited the types of multi-compositional nanowire that can be created and studied in the laboratory. Here, we report a high-throughput technique that can be used to prepare coaxial nanowires with sub-10 nm control over the architectural parameters in both axial and radial dimensions. The method, termed coaxial lithography (COAL), relies on templated electrochemical synthesis and can create coaxial nanowires composed of combinations of metals, metal oxides, metal chalcogenides and conjugated polymers. To illustrate the possibilities of the technique, a core/shell semiconductor nanowire with an embedded plasmonic nanoring was synthesized—a structure that cannot be prepared by any previously known method—and its plasmon-excitation-dependent optoelectronic properties were characterized.

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Figure 1: Coaxial lithography.
Figure 2: Generalization of COAL to inorganic cores.
Figure 3: Integration of a plasmonic Au ring within a hybrid junction composed of an organic p-type core (P3HT) and an inorganic n-type shell (CdSe).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank M. Jones, K. Brown, M. O'Brien and M. Ashley for helpful discussions and comments. This material is based upon work supported by the following: AFOSR FA9550-09-1-0294 and AOARD FA2386-13-1-4124; the Non-equilibrium Energy Research Center (NERC), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US DoE, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences DE-SC0000989; the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, DoD/NSSEFF Program/NPS N00244-09-1-0012 and N00244-09-1-0071; and NSF MRSEC programme (DMR-1121262) at the Materials Research Center of NU. This work also made use of the EPIC facility (NUANCE Center-Northwestern University), which has received support from the MRSEC programme (NSF DMR-1121262) at the Materials Research Center and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (EEC-0118025/003), both programmes of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The authors also acknowledge support from the State of Illinois and Northwestern University. T.O. acknowledges 3M for a science and technology fellowship, ECS for a summer fellowship and SPIE for an optics and photonics education scholarship.

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T.O. and G.R.B. contributed equally to this work. T.O. and G.R.B designed the experiments, prepared the materials and collected the data. T.O., G.R.B. and C.A.M. designed the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chad A. Mirkin.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ozel, T., Bourret, G. & Mirkin, C. Coaxial lithography. Nature Nanotech 10, 319–324 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.33

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