Mechanism and application of capillary-force self-assembly micro/nanofabrication

Abstract

Self-assembly has attracted increasing attention as an effective strategy for fabrication of functional micro/nanostructures in recent years. Capillary-force as a significant driving force of self-assembly has become a versatile and scalable approach to build complex geometries at the micro/nanoscales. In order to take full advantage of capillary-force to fabricate specific micro/nanoscales devices, we have done a thorough research on the mechanism of capillary-force self-assembly and analyzed the impact factors of micro/nanostructures suffered during the self-assembly process. In the aspect of application, we classified the main assembly methods, micro/nanostructures which can be got and their potential applications. Finally, we indicated that capillary-force self-assembly would have broad utilization in micro/nanofabrication due to its tunability and simplicity. Meanwhile, we put forward some issues that need to be solved in the further research.