Additive fabrication of patterned multi-layered thin films of Ta2O5 and CdS on ITO using microcontact printing technique

Abstract

The micro-patterning of multi-layered thin films containing CdS and Ta2O5 layers on ITO substrate with various structures was successfully obtained by combining three different techniques: chemical solution depositions, sol-gel, and microcontact printing (μCP) methods using octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) as the organic thin layer template. Ta2O5 layer was prepared by sol-gel casting and CdS one obtained by chemical solution deposition, respectively. Parallel and cross patterns of multi-layers with Ta2O5 and CdS films were fabricated additively by successive removal of OTS layer pre-formed. This study presents the designed architectures consisting of the two types of feature having horizontal dimensions of 170 μm and 340 μm with constant thickness ca. 150 nm of each deposited materials. The thin film lay-out of the cross-patterning is composed of four regions with chemically different layer compositions, which are confirmed by Auger electron microanalysis.