Abstract

Modem nanotechnologies such as the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and the atomic force microscopy heavily rely on our ability to control; maintain the gap width between two objects, often with sub-nanometer precisions. However matured these quantum technologies are, their applications are limited to imaging or to single molecular manipulations because of the small device footprints of the zero-dimensional, ~1 nm² variable gap architectures. For photonic applications encompassing the microwave and terahertz regime, we need to vastly increase the effective area of gap control, to truly macroscopic scale. We addressed this issue by extending picometer distance controllability to the wafer-length; wafer-scale. Based on atomic layer lithography, high aspect ratio-nanotrenches of 10 nm width, up to 2 cm-long are fabricated by etching-out the alumina spacer, on a flexible substrate [1].

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