News

The Hatton group together with Professor Tim Jones report the development of a rapid, solvent free method for the fabrication of large area gold films with a thickness of only 8 billionths of a metre, in Advanced Functional Materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201002021. These films combine high optical transparency and electrical conductivity with a remarkably low surface roughness and are exceptionally robust towards ultra-sonic agitation in a range of common solvents. By incorporating a random array of circular apertures into the films using microsphere lithography the team also show how the optical properties can be optimized for application as the transparent electrode in organic solar cells. These ultra-thin films are potentially widely applicable for a variety of applications, where stable, chemically well-defined, ultra-smooth transparent electrodes are required such as in the emerging fields of nanoelectronics and nanophotonics.