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Abstract

The evaporation through shadow masks (nanostencils) overcomes the limitations typically given by the patterning methods involving conventional optical lithography and etching, such as diffraction limits and etch-selectivity. It allows making low-cost nanopatterns on arbitrary surfaces, and furthermore enables large-scale manufacturing. This paper demonstrates the fabrication of metal cantilevers with sub-micron dimensions using direct evaporation through the miniature nanostencils and followed by dry etching to release metal nanolevers from substrate. Such miniature stencils with sub-micro structures as small as 250 nm, are excellent tools to study and optimise process parameters for the fabrication of metal structures by varying the condition of the deposition parameters. The fabricated cantilevers were characterized using a laser Doppler Interferometer technique. The smallest apertures slits in the stencil where used to form an array of nanolevers 2 – 6 um long, 450 – 700 nm wide and 50 – 100 nm thick. The resonance frequency as function of lever thickness was characterized in vacuum. A 100-nm-thick Al cantilever has a resonance frequency of 23 MHz and a quality factor of 628 at 10^-3 Pa, which corresponds well to the theory. Further studies include other hi-stress metals, such as Ni and Cu, which however lead to highly curled nanostructures. In the presentation we will show details about the fabrication and characterization of metal nanolevers fabricated by stencil method.

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