Sculptured thin films (STFs) are nanostructured materials with unidirectionally varying properties that can be designed and realized in a controllable manner using variants of physical vapor deposition.
[4][5] At visible and infrared wavelengths, a single-section STF is a unidirectionally nonhomogeneous continuum with direction-dependent properties.
Several sections can be grown consecutively into a multisection STF, which can be conceived of as an optical circuit that can be integrated with electronic circuitry on a chip.
[citation needed] Applications as low-permittivity barrier layers in electronic chips as well as solar cells have also been suggested.
[citation needed] Biomedical applications such as tissue scaffolds, drug-delivery platforms, virus traps, and labs-on-a-chip are also in different stages of development.