Room temperature mechanical thinning and imprinting of solid films.

The mechanical patterning of thin films has received recent attention due to significant potential for efficient nanostructure fabrication. For solid films, mechanically thinning wide areas remains particularly challenging. In this work, we introduce a new plastic ratchet mechanism involving small amplitude (<10 nm), oscillatory shear motion of the forging die. This isothermal mechanism significantly extends mass transport across surfaces, broadening the scope of nanoscale processing for a potentially wide class of solid ductile materials.