Template stripping using cold welding Available to Purchase

A method for fabricating ultra-flat template-stripped (TS) metal surfaces on standard silicon/silicon-oxide wafers by means of gold cold-welding is presented, and cold-welded template-stripped (CWTS) platinum surfaces are demonstrated as an example. Due to the lack of any adhesives, the final TS metal “sandwiches” are fully compatible with all organic solvents, as well as ultra-high vacuum (UHV). The produced CWTS platinum surfaces are demonstrated to have the same surface properties—most importantly single-angstrom rms roughness—as previously studied TS platinum. The effectiveness of the cold-welding technique is shown to decrease as a function of time exposed to ambient laboratory conditions after removal from vacuum and prior to pressurized cold-welding. Contact angle measurements demonstrate this decrease to be due to a gradual increase in surface contamination of the evaporated gold layers prior to their being joined by cold-welding. The potential versatility and scalability of the CWTS fabrication process is briefly discussed.