The demand for the fabrication of nanostructures consisting of metal and dielectric is increasing with the development of new plasmonic optics. Since 1997, the presenter has produced various dielectric nanostructures by the bottom-up method and reported their optical and electrochemical properties such as light propagation in two-dimensional polystyrene colloidal crystals[1], the electron emission of diamond nanorods arrays[2], photochemical micro beakers composed of TiO2[3], etc. The advantages of the bottom-up method are that you can easily try various materials in addition to being able to easily perform experiments at the laboratory level. In this presentation, we will report about the various nanostructures fabricated using thermal dewetting process of metal/dielectric interface[4], focusing on the application to the plasmonic color pigment and microfluid devices.
1 Chem. Commun. 2004, 506.
2 Chem. Lett. 2000, 29, 534.
3 Chem. Lett. 1997, 925.
4 Nanoscale Adv., 2020, 2, 2271.
The sensitized thermal cell (STC) is a battery that can convert heat directly into electric power at low environmental temperatures (100°C or lower). It can be buried in the ground and generate electricity directly from the Earth’s crust. This STC was originally suggested by the authors in 2017 (Mater. Horiz., 2017,4, 649-656), and media in different continents and countries, including Europa, the United States, Asia, Arab, and Africa, reported the STC as a sensational technique that can directly affect the oil price. The most valuable feature of the STC is, after the electricity generation was stop, the reaction could restart with a simple flip of an on/off switch in the external circuit after the electricity generation was stopped. These batteries could be, for example, buried in a geothermal spot and work as a power plant.
Efficient and low-cost thermal energy-harvesting systems are crucial to solve the global energy problem. A new energy conversion system for the generation of electric power directly from heat energy is described herein. The device is a sensitized thermal cell (STC) based on a dye-sensitized solar cell. In the established system, thermally-excited electrons in a semiconductor were utilized instead of photon-excited electrons in a dye. Consequently, the STC generated electricity by “placing” or “burying” the cell in the heat source. The present study summarized the recent results of the STC and the difference between photo excitation and thermally excitation.
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been draw attention for wide range of applications from photonic crystals for visible light range by its catalytic characteristics to tera-hertz range by its high refractive index. We present an experimental study of fabrication of fine structures of TiO2 with a ZEP electron beam resist mask followed by Ti sputter deposition techniques. A TiO2 thin layer of 150 nm thick was grown on an FTO glass substrate with a fine patterned ZEP resist mask by a conventional RF magnetron sputter method with Ti target. The deposition was carried out with argon-oxygen gases at a pressure of 5.0 x 10 -1 Pa in a chamber. During the deposition, ratio of Ar-O2 gas was kept to the ratio of 2:1 and the deposition ratio was around 0.5 Å/s to ensure enough oxygen to form TiO2 and low temperature to avoid deformation of fine pattern of the ZPU resist mask. Deposited TiO2 layers are white-transparent, amorphous, and those roughnesses are around 7 nm. Fabricated TiO2 PCs have wider TiO2 slabs of 112 nm width leaving periodic 410 x 410 nm2 air gaps. We also studied transformation of TiO2 layers and TiO2 fine structures by baking at 500 °C. XRD measurement for TiO2 shows that the amorphous TiO2 transforms to rutile and anatase forms by the baking while keeping the same profile of the fine structures. Our fabrication method can be one of a promising technique to optic devices on researches and industrial area.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.