Centimeter-scale fully suspended metal and metal oxide thin films by one-step transfer-free liquid metal capillary forming

Abstract

Fully suspended thin films can decouple substrate effects and provide additional tuning degrees of freedom compared with their substrate-supported counterparts, making them unique platforms for next-generation thin film devices. Here we report one-step, transfer-free and substrate-free fabrication of centimeter-scale ultrathin fully suspended metal and metal oxide film structures via liquid metal capillary forming. We show that, analogous to soap film formation, the instantaneously developed few-nanometer-thick native surface oxide can laminate various liquid metals into micrometer-thick metallic films. Surprisingly, the surfactant-like metal oxide bilayer can survive dewetting-induced liquid metal drainage, forming suspended two-dimensional films featuring an enormous lateral size-to-thickness ratio on the order of 10^7. We further demonstrate rapid prototyping of metallic minimal-surface thin-walled structures and ultra-sensitive acoustic wave detection with these suspended thin film platforms.