Conformal SiO₂ coating of sub-100 nm diameter channels of polycarbonate etched ion-track channels by atomic layer deposition

• Nicolas Sobel,
• Christian Hess,
• Manuela Lukas,
• Anne Spende,
• Bernd Stühn,
• M. E. Toimil-Molares and
• Christina Trautmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 472–479, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.48

• analysis reveals that the mechanism of SiO2 formation is based on subsurface crystal growth. By dissolving the polymer, the silica nanotubes are released from the ion-track membrane. The thickness of the tube wall is well controlled by the ALD process. Because the track-etched channels exhibited diameters

• in the range of nanometres and lengths in the range of micrometres, cylindrical tubes with an aspect ratio as large as 3000 have been produced. Keywords: atomic layer deposition (ALD); ion-track technology; nanochannels; polycarbonate; silica (SiO2); small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS); track-etched

• channels; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS); Introduction Track-etched membranes are fabricated by heavy-ion irradiation of polymer foils and subsequent chemical etching of the ion tracks [1][2]. By controlling the etching parameters, cylindrical and conical channels can be fabricated by symmetric