Fabrication of deep-profile Al-doped ZnO one- and two-dimensional lattices as plasmonic elements

In this work, we report on fabrication of deep-profile one- and two-dimensional lattices made from Al-doped ZnO (AZO). AZO is considered as an alternative plasmonic material having the real part of the permittivity negative in the near infrared range. The exact position of the plasma frequency of AZO is doping concentration dependent, allowing for tuning possibilities.

In addition, the thickness of the AZO film also affects its material properties. Physical vapor deposition techniques typically applied for AZO coating do not enable deep profiling of a plasmonic structure. Using the atomic layer deposition technique, a highly conformal deposition method, allows us to fabricate high-aspect ratio structures such as one-dimensional lattices with a period of 400 nm and size of the lamina of 200 nm in width and 3 µm in depth.

Thus, our structures have an aspect ratio of 1:15 and are homogeneous on areas of 2x2 cm2 and more. We also produce two-dimensional arrays of circular nanopillars with similar dimensions. Instead of nanopillars hollow tubes with a wall thickness on demand from 20 nm up to a complete fill can be fabricated.