Fabrication of gold nano-structures with azopolymer templates

Fabrication of gold nano-patterns has been demonstrated employing surface relief structures created on films of an azobenzene-functionalized polymer as templates. The surface relief templates were photoinscribed on the azopolymer films in one-step with two laser beams. Thin layers of gold were over-coated on the polymer templates by thermal evaporation. Gold lines of a few hundred nanometer width were successfully fabricated by pyrolyzing the azobenzene polymer. Sub-micron gold dots were also created. The resulting gold structures exhibited the same periodicity as the polymer templates.