High-defined and size-selective deposition of nanoparticles by their manipulation in an electrostatic field

[Display omitted] •Electrostatic manipulation of charged nanoparticles produced by gas aggregation.•Simulation-guided tailoring of highly designed nanostructured surfaces.•The concept for defined and controllable nanoparticle surface coverage.•Nanoparticle diffusion in the substrate vicinity affected by localized fields. This study combines numerical simulation with an experimental investigation of high-level designed nanostructured surfaces built from metal nanoparticles (NPs). The ultimate goal of this research is to prepare highly designed isotropic surfaces with high purity, defined size, homogeneous surface coverage, and high deposition rate, i.e., the properties appreciated e.g., in precise nanoengineering of microsensors and/or nanoelectronics, etc. The approach is based on manipulation of electrically charged nanoparticles, produced by a gas aggregation cluster source (GAS), in the electrostatic field propagated by two parallel electrodes mounted at the GAS output orifice. The model derived by numerical simulation enables prediction of the distribution and properties of the NPs across the (x, y) substrate plane as a function of the electrical potential superimposed by the charged NPs in the volume and the external electrical field. A good qualitative agreement was found between the model and the properties of GAS-deposited NPs onto the Si substrate (the deposited surface was analyzed by the atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging), which reveals the electrostatic manipulation of the charged NPs beam as a promising tool for deposition of highly tailored nanostructures.