-For spontaneous dewetting of SiGe, we increased the maximal processable surface up to 200 mm wafers dewetting films with initial thickness from 5 nm to ~1 um. This results in textured surface with structures with a footprint spanning over three orders of magnitude, from ~10 nm up to ~10 um. These structures have been exploited in several contexts such as anti-reflection coatings, structural colour, and flexible photonic devices (e.g. removing the SiGe islands from the substrate and embedding them in flexible and stretchable membranes). The most promising application of these structures over large scales is their use as intermediate structures for nano-imprint lithography (e.g. of metal oxides). The wafer bearing dewetted particles are used as hard-master to create a flexible mould that is then applied on a sol-gel containing the precursor of a metal oxide (e.g. SiO2 and TiO2) to reproduce the initial pattern. This idea is currently being exploited by SOLNIL and OBDUCAT for anti-reflection coating on glass, fused silica, silicon and sapphire.
-A last advance in solid state dewetting was the fabrication of Ge islands by using a conventional rapid thermal processor instead of an ultra-high vacuum chamber (in a molecular beam epitaxy reactor).
-The dewetted SiGe architectures with spinodal like features were exploited as a model material to reproduce a porous medium to investigate the role of transmitting channels, where a fluid can flow, and dead-end pores, where the fluid does not flow. Our finding is important to develop new strategies for water filtering and detection of bacteria in a faster and more efficient way.
- NARCISO provided the ground to create SOLNIL, a spin-off of AMU at work on sol-gel coatings and nano-imprint lithography. Beyond the results mentioned in this report, all the knowledge produced in NARCISO can be exploited by SOLNIL for micro-fluidic (e.g. for DNA sequencing) and photonic devices (e.g. for anti-reflection coatings, photonic metasurfaces, meta-lenses). They are both produced by SOLNIL that has already attracted several customers that are paying to develop specific materials and devices deigns. Beyond these customers, SOLNIL is currently undergoing a fund-rising (pre-seed) that should be finalised by April 2023.
