Distorted colloidal arrays as designed template

In this paper, a novel type of colloidal template with broken symmetry was generated using commercial, inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE). With proper but simple treatment, the traditional symmetric non-close-packed colloidal template evolves into an elliptical profile with high uniformity. This unique feature can add flexibility to colloidal lithography and/or other lithography techniques using colloidal particles as building blocks to fabricate nano-/micro-structures with broken symmetry. Beyond that the novel colloidal template we developed possesses on-site tunability, i.e. the transformability from a symmetric into an asymmetric template. Sandwich-type particles with eccentric features were fabricated utilizing this tunable template. This distinguishing feature will provide the possibility to fabricate structures with unique asymmetric features using one set of colloidal template, providing flexibility and broad tunability to enable nano-/micro-structure fabrication with colloidal templates.