Metal-organic framework template-guided electrochemical lithography on substrates for SERS sensing applications

The templating method holds great promise for fabricating surface nanopatterns. To enhance the manufacturing capabilities of complex surface nanopatterns, it is important to explore new modes of the templates beyond their conventional masking and molding modes. Here, we employed the metal-organic framework (MOF) microparticles assembled monolayer films as templates for metal electrodeposition and revealed a previously unidentified guiding growth mode enabling the precise growth of metallic films exclusively underneath the MOF microparticles. The guiding growth mode was induced by the fast ion transportation within the nanochannels of the MOF templates. The MOF template could be repeatedly used, allowing for the creation of identical metallic surface nanopatterns for multiple times on different substrates. The MOF template-guided electrochemical growth mode provided a robust route towards cost-effective fabrication of complex metallic surface nanopatterns with promising applications in metamaterials, plasmonics, and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensing fields. Templating method holds great promise for fabricating surface nanopatterns. Here authors present a guiding growth mode using metal-organic framework microparticles as templates during metal electrodeposition, where metals exclusively grow underneath the microparticles.