Nanostructured long-range

Nanostructures - Soft Materials with Long Range Order... 

Abstract This article is a review of the chemical and physical nature of patternable block copolymers and their use as templates for functional nanostructures. The patternability of block copolymers, that is, the ability to make complex, arbitrarily shaped submicron structures in block copolymer films, results from both their ability to self-assemble into microdomains, the bottom-up approach, and the manipulation of these patterns by a variety of physical and chemical means including top-down lithographic techniques. Procedures for achieving long-range control of microdomain pattern orientation as well... 

The use of block copolymers to form a variety of different nanosized periodic patterns continues to be an active area of research. Whether in bulk, thin film, or solution micelle states, block copolymers present seemingly unlimited opportunities for fabricating and patterning nanostructures. The wealth of microstructures and the tunability of structural dimensions make them a favorable choice for scientists in a variety of research fields. As reviewed here, they can function as nano devices themselves, or act as templates or scaffolds for the fabrication of functional nanopatterns composed of almost all types of materials. However, there are still two obvious areas which require more work control of the long-range 3D nanostructure via more user-friendly processes and the identification of new materials with different functional properties. 

Many methods to control 3D block copolymer nanostructures have been reviewed here, with particular attention paid to achieving long-range order... 

Porous chalcogenide aerogels is another broad class of non-oxidic framework that prepared by template-free routes [71-73]. These materials possess a continuous nanostructured chalcogenide framework that is penetrated by a random network of nanopore channels. Because these high surface area structures are random and not exhibit long-range pore periodicity, such systems are outside of the scope of this review and will not be covered further. 

Most of the studies on real nanostructured oxides are based on materials not having a well-defined 3D structure (both on short and long-range), being composed of irregularly shaped nano-crystals. These materials are polycrystalline, and show several nano-interfaces, which stabilize... 

Using EBL or ion beam lithography (IBL) a variation of shapes and dimensions can bee realized even down to 10 nm in size. With EBL large areas cannot be made accurately due to the problems with the long-range coherence of the e-beam writer and also the throughput is very low. But it is a very flexible method for the fabrication of nanostructures of arbitrary shapes for research [4]. Recently it has been shown that EB and IB projection methods can solve the problems with the throughput and mis-coherence... 

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