We present the fabrication of thin membranes with dense arrays of nanometer and submicrometer pore arrays by the integration of standard micromachining with three pore patterning techniques: electron beam lithography (EBL), nanosphere lithography (NSL) and aluminum anodization. Using a serial top-down EBL technique we exploit a fine size, positioning and flexibility of this tool. NSL and aluminum anodization, as self-organized bottom-up processes, guaranties cost efficiency and throughput. In our work, we have fabricated silicon nitride (SiN) and alumina (Al(2)O(0)3) membranes with a thickness down to 100 nm, side length ranging from 200 mu m up to 2.4 mm and pore size ranging from 20 nm to 500 nm.

Gold membranes with large arrays of sub-μm holes were fabricated and optically characterized. The fabrication is a combination of a bottom-up, self-assembly based patterning technique, Nanosphere Lithography (NSL), and standard microfabrication. This was achieved by 1) up-scaling of the deposition of close-packed bead monolayers to 4" wafer substrates, 2) controlled bead size reduction, 3) etching of high aspect-ratio Si pillar arrays, 4) using the pillar arrays as a lift-off template, and 5) releasing the membranes by dry-etching. In this way, millimeter-size, 200 nm thick gold membranes with dense, short-range ordered hole arrays were fabricated. The array periodicity was either 428 nm or 535 nm, depending on the initial bead size. The hole diameter was tuned in the range of 150 nm to 250 nm. Optical transmission spectroscopy showed surface plasmon mediated extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) with an enhancement factor greater than two.

We report on the development of two cost efficient hybrid manufacturing chains for the fabrication of micro- and nano-structured plastic components and silicon devices.In the approach proposed, self-assembly based structuring techniques and interference lithography have been developed for the low cost fabrication of micro- and nano-structured masters. These were used for replication into thermoplastics by hot-embossing and injection molding thus allowing the mass production of micro- nanostructured plastic components for biotech application.In addition, nanosphere and block copolymer lithography have been successfully combined with standard microfabrication processes for the wafer-scale production of suspended ultrathin silicon nitride membranes with tunable pore diameter from 80 to 500 nm for applications in ultrafiltration and molecule separation.