The nanotechnology of the future demands controlled fabrication of nanostructures. Much success has been made in the last decade in fabricating nanostructures on surface with desirable size and shape, either in serial using scanned-probe techniques or in parallel using self-assembly/self-organization processes sometimes combined with lithographic patterning techniques. However, controlled fabrication of nanostructures remains in general a formidable challenge. For example, despite the enormous success we have so far enjoyed with carbon nanotubes (CNTs), it is still very difficult (if not impossible) to synthesize CNTs with a degree of control that we would like in terms of their size and chirality. Fabrication of nanostructures in many other forms and with other materials is even less developed. There exists a strong need for the development of nanofabrication techniques with higher degree of control. Here, we demonstrate the general design principles of an emerging nanofabrication approach based on nanomechanical architecture of strained bi-layer thin films, which allows fabrication of a variety of nanostructures, such as nanotubes, nanorings, nanodrills, and nanocoils, with an unprecedented level of control.
