Preparation of non-contact ordered array of polystyrene colloidal particles by using a metallic thin film of fused hemispheres

A thin metallic bilayer consists of fused hollow hemispheres of 930 nm in diameter is fabricated by sputter deposition of Ti and Fe at 50 and 5 nm of thickness, respectively, onto an array of spherical polystyrene colloidal particles. The fused metal hemispheres are utilized to assemble polystyrene colloidal particles of smaller diameters (800 nm) into non-contact two-dimensional periodic array by trapping them in the metallic wells.