Silver surface with anisotropic roughness

The design of surface nanostructures is one mayor challenge in modern nanotechnology that nonetheless can provide very useful tools in areas such as magnetism, photonics, electronics, among others. Nonetheless, the fabrication of thin films with specific surface morphologies usually relies on complex and time-consuming procedures. In the present figure, we show an AFM scan of a Ag thin film surface. This structure has been grown by means of direct grazing-angle ion-sputtering on a Si chip. Due to the self-shadowing of the Ag ions and their anisotropic mobility on the Si surface, a very specific roughness pattern is generated in the type of surfaces and can be used as a template for more complex metamaterials with deposition procedures can provide a pathway to tune and control the topographies of this surface of the film. The optimization of grazing angle specific applications.

Image taken by Mikel Quintana Uriarte.