Advances in contemporary nanosphere lithographic techniques.

Nanosphere lithography (NSL) is an inexpensive, high throughput, materials general nanofabrication technique capable of producing a large variety of nanoscale structures including well-ordered 2 dimensional nanoparticle arrays. In this review, we will summarize the most recent advances in the fabrication of size-tunable nanoparticles using NSL. Four examples of new NSL-derived materials will be described: (1) The development of a method to release NSL nanoparticles from the substrate for applications in solution environments, (2) the fabrication of triangular nanoholes with reactive ion etching, (3) the electrochemical fine tuning of the structure of a silver nanoparticle and the wavelength of its localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), and (4) the growth of ultra thin protective dielectric layers on NSL-fabricated Ag nanotriangles using atomic layer deposition (ALD).