Fabrication of superconducting NbN meander nanowires by nano-imprint lithography

Superconducting nanowire single photon detector （SNSPD）, as a new type of superconducting single photon detector （SPD）, has a broad application prospect in quantum communication and other fields. In order to prepare SNSPD with high performance, it is necessary to fabricate a large area of uniform meander nanowires, which is the core of the SNSPD. In this paper, we demonstrate a process of patterning ultra-thin NbN films into meander-type nanowires by using the nano- imprint technology. In this process, a combination of hot embossing nano-imprint lithography （HE-NIL） and ultraviolet nano-imprint lithography （UV-NIL） is used to transfer the meander nanowire structure from the NIL Si hard mold to the NbN film. We have successfully obtained a NbN nanowire device with uniform line width. The critical temperature （Tc） of the superconducting NbN meander nanowires is about 5 K and the critical current （lc） is about 3.5 μA at 2.5 K.

Effective metal mold method for the production of bionic adhesives based on electrochemical modifications

Bionic adhesives with tip-expanded microstructural arrays have attracted considerable interest owing to their high adhesive performance at low preloads.Their mainstream manufacturing method is molding.Due to most molds are made of silicon or silicon-based soft templates,and have poor wear resistant or vulnerability to high temperature,limiting their use in large-scale manufacturing.Nickel is widely used as an embossing mold in the micro/nano-imprint industrial process owing to its good mechanical properties.However,the processing of metal molds for the fabrication of tip-expanded microstructural arrays is extremely challenging.In this study,using electrodeposition techniques,the shape of the micropores is modified to obtain end-controlled pores.The effect of the non-uniformity of the electric field on the microporous morphology in the electrodeposition process is systematically investigated.Furthermore,the mechanism of non-uniformity evolution of the microporous morphology is revealed.The optimized microporous metal array is used as a mold to investigate the cavity evolution laws of the elastic cushions under pre-load during the manufacturing process.As a result,typical bionic adhesives with tip-expansion are obtained.Moreover,corresponding adhesion mechanics are analyzed.The results show that electrochemical modifications have broad application prospects in the fabrication of tip-expanded microstructures,providing a new method for the large-scale fabrication of bionic adhesives based on metal molds.