Proton‐Assisted Assembly of Colloidal Nanoparticles into Wafer‐Scale Monolayers in Seconds

Abstract

Underwater adhesion processes in nature promise controllable assembly of functional nanoparticles for industrial mass production. However, their artificial strategies have faced challenges to uniformly transfer nanoparticles into a monolayer, particularly those below 100 nm in size, over large areas. Here we present a scalable “one‐shot” self‐limiting nanoparticle transfer technique, enabling the efficient transport of nanoparticles from water in microscopic volumes to an entire 2‐inch wafer in a remarkably short time of 10 seconds to reach near‐maximal surface coverage (ca. 40%) in a 2D mono‐layered fashion. Employing proton engineering in electrostatic assembly accelerates the diffusion of nanoparticles (over 50 μm2/sec), resulting in a hundredfold faster coating speed than the previously reported results in the literature. This charge‐sensitive process further enables “pick‐and‐place” nanoparticle patterning at the wafer scale, with large flexibility in surface materials, including flexible metal oxides and 3D‐printed polymers. As a result, we successfully demonstrate the fastest fabrication of wafer‐scale disordered plasmonic metasurfaces in seconds. These metasurfaces exhibit consistent resonating colors across diverse material and geometrical platforms, showcasing their potential for applications in full‐color painting and optical encryption devices.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Binding-Free Taste Visualization with Plasmonic Metasurfaces

“…silicon wafer using electron-beam evaporation, followed by a 5 nm thick HfO 2 layer deposited using atomic layer deposition. The negatively charged 50 nm Au nanoparticles dispersed in solution are then transferred onto the surface of the positively charged HfO 2 layer through the electrostatic attraction . This coating process allows for uniform 29.3 ± 1.5% surface coverage, through the entire wafer, Figure S6.…”