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We highlight some stability issues in high-surface-area and high-aspect ratio gold nanostructures fabricated using inorganic adhesion layers on silica substrates. We ascribe these problems to capillary and surface effects and show the use of organic silane self-assembled monolayers to improve the long-term stability of such structures.

We describe a fabrication process for electron beam lithography (EBL) and the following pattern transfer steps on transmission electron microscope (TEM) grids. For demonstration purposes, we use commercial off-the-shelf TEM grids consisting of a thin suspended silicon nitride membrane on a silicon frame supporting substrate. For the pattern transfer, we demonstrate both an additive patterning technique with metal deposition and lift-off, and a subtractive patterning technique with reactive ion etching. This process could enable direct ...