Direct Production of Silicon Nanostructures with Electrochemical Nanoimprinting

We demonstrate an electrochemical nanoimprinting process—termed as Mac-Imprint—to produce different silicon nanostructures. A master stamp featuring high-aspect-ratio nanostructures with Ta film as the blocking layer and Au nanostructures as the catalyst is realized by electron-beam lithography followed by Au electroplating. In particular, we investigate the generated monocrystalline silicon nanostructure characteristics and realize a 20 nm minimum feature size. Moreover, we demonstrate the creation of structural color image of a rooster with an average pixel size of 300 nm (∼42 000 dpi). Our results suggest that such a simple process has prospective applications ranging from optoelectronics to luminescent devices.