Bubble Based Micro/Nano Fabrication Method

Micro/nano structures, especially those in one dimensional, such as nano wires, are commonly used building blocks for the bottom-up assembly of electronic, photonic or mechanical devices. However, their fabrications are generally limited to the expensive equipments and methods capable of only working in an extremely small space. A big challenge facing the current scientific society is to overcome this barrier and build up a bridge between the macroscopic manipulation/observation and the fabrication in small world. Here, we proposed a new conceptual fabrication method, which can easily be implemented to synthesize, etch and construct micro or nano structures through manipulating the large scale bubbles composed of specific chemical compounds. The core of the method lies in the chemical reaction occurring at the interfaces between two or more soap bubbles. A surprisingly unique virtue of the bubble is that it can have a rather large diameter however an extremely small membrane thickness, whose smallest size even reaches nano scale. Therefore, the chemical reaction and synthesis occurred in the common boundary of such contacting bubbles would lead to products with very small size. Most important of all, all these were achieved via a much easy and straightforward way. To better understand the physical picture of the new method, the principle and mechanism for the bubble based fabrication process were interpreted. Several fundamental equations for characterizing the bubbles were proposed and preliminarily discussed. As the first trial to demonstrate the new concept, several typical micro structures were successfully fabricated in our lab. Particularly, a micro wire which can be used as tiny temperature sensor was made and tested. Being flexible, easily controllable and observable, environmentally friend and extremely low in cost, the present method is expected to be a significant technical route for making micro/nano structures in the near future. It also indicated for the first time that blowing soap bubbles means not just funny but also opens a new world for micro/nano fabrication.