Hydroxypropyl Cellulose as Enabling Material for the Nanofabrication of Photonic Architectures

by Camilla Dore, Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Harvesting (NANOPTO), ICMAB-CSIC

Date: Friday, 29 January 2021
Time: 11:00 am
Venue: Online session from the ICMAB Meeting Room. Register here to attend the Defense by Zoom. 

Abstract: In this thesis, we introduce the use of hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), a water soluble and biocompatible cellulose derivative, for the fabrication of photonic and plasmonic architectures. We show how to pattern this material into submicrometric periodic lattices, using soft nanoimprint lithography (NIL), one of the most promising techniques for large-scale manufacturing. Patterned HPC membranes exhibit tunable structural colors and may be used to boost the photoluminescence of a host organic dye or as disposable surface enhanced Raman substrates. Furthermore, tailored functional materials can be integrated into HPC using transfer printing technique.

We explore the high versatility of this approach embedding metal nanoparticles arrays and carbon nanotube networks into HPC adhesive films, obtaining plasmonic moiré multilayer superstructures and CNT based semitransparent conducting electrodes. Finally, we employ HPC as non-toxic and water processable sacrificial material for advanced and ecofriendly nanofabrication.

Supervisor:

• Agustín Mihi, NANOPTO group, ICMAB

PhD Committee:

• President: Elvira Fortunato, NOVA University of Lisbon (FCT-UNL)
• Secretary: Gemma Rius, IMB-CNM-CSIC
• Vocal: Valerio Pruneri, ICFO

University: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
PhD Programme: Materials Science