Development of a Laboratory for Ultra High Resolution Electron Beam Nanofabrication and Imaging Research in Electrical Engineering and Physics

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9601738 Scherer There is continuing effort to develop new techniques to reduce the lateral sizes of nanostructures. As the design of electron microscopes has improved, and the anisotropy of the pattern transfer processes is optimized, it is now becoming possible to fabricate structures below 10 nm. In this size regime fundamentally new types of device behavior are expected to occur. The exceptional sensitivity to size in this domain, in which structures are only tens of atoms across, means that even small improvements (e.g., factor of two) in the resolution and dimensional control of lithography and pattern transfer can have profound impact upon our ability to resolve new phenomena. In addition, the behavior of more conventional devices, such as semiconductor lasers, can be improved and controlled by high resolution lithography. Herein, the authors propose that low voltage electron beam lithography carried out by means of a field-emission electron microscope can provide such control. Funding is solicited to establish a laboratory of ultra high resolution electron beam (e-beam) nanofabrication and imaging. This laboratory will enable the development of new techniques for e-beam lithography at very low electron acceleration voltages, and will permit the fabrication of structures in the size regime approaching the molecular scale. It will serve to complement NSF's national laboratories for nanofabrication; its smaller size (a core group of two professors who have collaborated on nanostructures for a decade) is conducive to the pursuit of developmental work in electron beam lithography- sustained, rather specialized work that would be less facile in the larger user facilities. In addition, this collaboration brings together a unique combination of expertise and equipment that is essential for these endeavors. ***