Improving Nucleation in the Fabrication of High-Quality 3D Macro-Porous Copper Film through The Surface-Modification of A Polystyrene Colloid-Assembled Template

A new approach is developed to the fabrication of high-quality three-dimensional macro-porous copper films. A highly-ordered macroporous copper film is successfully produced on a polystyrene sphere (PS) template that has been modified by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). It is shown that this procedure can change a hydrophobic surface of PS template into a hydrophilic surface. The present study is devoted to the influence of the electrolyte solution transport on the nucleation process. It is demonstrated that the permeability of the electrolyte solution in the nanochannels of the PS template plays an important role in the chemical electrodeposition of high-quality macroporous copper film. The permeability is drastically enhanced in our experiment through the surface modi. cation of the PS templates. The method could be used to homogeneously produce a large number of nucleations on a substrate, which is a key factor for the fabrication of the high-quality macroporous copper film.

Pressure Controlled Self-Assembly of High Quality Three-Dimensional Colloidal Photonic Crystals

A concise pressure controlled isothermal heating vertical deposition (PCIHVD) method is developed, which provides an optimal growing condition with better stability and reproducibility for fabricating photonic crystals (PCs) without the limitation of colloidal sphere materials and sizes. High quality PCs are fabricated with PCIHVD from polystyrene spheres with diameters ranging from 200 nm to 1 mu m. The deep photonic band gap and steep photonic band edge of the samples are most favorable for realizing ultrafast optical devices, photonic chips, and communications. This method makes a meaningful advance in the quality and diversity of PCs and greatly promotes their wide applications.

The Key Factors In Fabrication Of High-Quality Ordered Macroporous Copper Film

The template-directed fabrication of highly-ordered porous film is of significant importance in implementation of the photonic band gap structure. The paper reports a simple and effective method to improve the electrodeposition of metal porous film by utilizing highly-ordered polystyrene spheres (PSs) template. By surface-modification method, the hydrophobic property of the PSs template surfaces was changed into hydrophilic one. It was demonstrated that the surface modi. cation process enhanced the permeability of the electrolyte solution in the nanometer-sized voids of the colloidal template. The homogeneously deposited copper film with the highly-ordered voids in size of less than 500 nm was successfully obtained. In addition, it was found that large defects, such as microcracks in the template, strongly influenced the macroporous films quality. An obvious preferential growth in the cracked area was observed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.