Self-assembly nanostructured gold for high aspect ratio silicon microstructures by metal assisted chemical etching

Self-assembly gold nanostructured membranes are created to mechanically stabilize the catalyst movement during metal assisted chemical etching. This results in an improved vertical control of the etching profile for high aspect ratio silicon microstructures. The new method is a robust and cheap microfabrication for dense micro-patterns on a large area, such as diffraction gratings for hard X-ray phase contrast imaging and metrology. Self-assembly Au nanostructures stabilize the catalyst during metal assisted chemical etching, improving the vertical profile of high aspect ratio Si dense micro-patterns on large area, such as diffraction gratings for X-ray phase contrast imaging.