Patterning of curved surfaces using Nanosphere Lithography

Carbon fibers are used in many fields such as automobile parts, as golf shafts and notably as aircraft components since they provide a high strength to weight ratio that exceeds any conventional metal. Besides this known field and usage of carbon fibers in the industry with high commercial grade, as the subject of this work, the applicability of nanosphere lithography method and the affinity of these fibers with silica suspension are studied. The aim is to establish such self-organized nanostructuring over the curved surface plane of the fiber which may serve in a similar way like the fiber-optic transmitter that transmits signals. In this case, the manufacturing of monolayer of mono-disperse spheres is conducted using the nanosphere lithography method since it enables the manufacturing of multidimensional nanostructures with high homogeneity, simplicity and essentially with low costs. Various experiments were carried out by having captures of the meniscus formation around the fiber with a high-resolution camera to observe any possible surface energy alterations and modifications in the recipe of the silica solution were applied.