Practical applications of thin films nanostructured by shadowing growth

Even prior to the recent advent of advanced top-down processes, shadowing growth by oblique angle deposition (OAD) has long been providing self-assembled nanostructures over much larger areas for much lower costs. In the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the development of well-controlled three-dimensional nanomorphologies such as zig-zags and helixes. Much effort has been put into theoretical and numerical understanding of the growth mechanism to improve morphology. Many researchers in academia have been investigating useful properties of nanocolumnar thin films in their laboratories. However, most companies seem hesitant to introduce OAD techniques into the factory, owing to the prejudice that the OAD thin films are neither durable nor reproducible. The progress in OAD technology for practical applications is reviewed and discussed. c The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI. [DOI: 10.1117/1.JNP.7.073598]