Pergamon NanoStructured Materials, Vol. 12, pp. 383-386, 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd PI1 SO9659773(99)00140-3 0 1999 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 09659113/99l$-see front matter NANOSTRUCTURING BY ULTRATHIN DIBLOCK COPOLYMER/TITANIUM COMPOSITE FILMS Peter Eibeck, Joachim P. Spatz, Stefan MiiBmer and Martin M6ller* Universitiit Ulm, Organische Chemie III-Makromolekulare Chemie, D-89081 Ulm e-mail: martin.moeller@chemie.uni-uIm.de Thomas Henog and Paul Ziemann Universitlt Ulm, Abteilung Festkiirperphysik, D-89081 Ulm Abstract: The usability of ultrathin diblock copolymer films providing a heterogeneous chemical surface in a new nanolithographic technique is described. This technique allows the parallel preparation ofperiodic point pattern in an inorganic substrate. Diblock copolymers of polystyrene (PS) and poly-2-vinylpyridine (P2 VP) are adrorbed from a nonselective solvent like chloroform on an ionic, high surface energy substrate (mica). Under these conditions formation of a regular, chemically heterogeneous nm-sized surface structure is observed consisting of isolated PS clusters which dewet the substrate covered by a lnm thick fdm of adsorbed P2VP. Vapour deposition of titanium on the heterogeneous surface occurs preferentially on the less polar polystyrene islands. This way Ti films with regular thickness variations are formed corresponding to the pattern of the laterally segregated PS-b-P2 VP film. The films are employed as lithographic masks allowing the transfer of the initial polymer pattern into the inorganic substrate with high aspect ratios. 01,999 Acta Metallurgica Inc. INTRODUCTION Modem lithographic methods based on X-ray, electron or ion beam techniques allow the preparation of structures being smaller than lOOnm(1). However, due to the serial nature of these methods, they are not suitable when structuring of a macroscopic area is required. Therefore there is a need for complementary approaches which allow the parallel preparation of nanometer range patterns(2-5). Based on molecular concepts from organic(6) and macro- molecular chemistry(7-10) efforts are made to imitate the “bottom up” approach of nature. Here we report an intermediate approach, using a self-assembled diblock copolymer mask in 383