Metal membranes with hierarchically organized nanotube arrays

A method for fabricating hierarchically organized arrays of Au nanotubes in the form of membranes, which can be used as shadow masks for generating spatially well-resolved 2-D periodic dot array with a perfect arrangement on a cm2 scale was reported. The electrochemical deposition was used to replicate a master pattern of perfectly ordered AAO membrane based on imprint lithography. It was observed that the fabrication of metal nanotube membranes with different tube diameters can be realized using AAO templates with different channel diameters and/or by varying the electrochemical deposition time. It was shown that the nanofabrication method can be extended to other metallic or even semiconducting materials that can be electrodeposited.