Instrumentation to Enable and Enhance Three-Dimensional Nanofabrication Capabilities in the National NanofabricationUsers Network

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9601886 Davis Nanofabrication, or the fabrication of solid structures on the nanometer size scale, has evolved into a field which is the foundation of a significant fraction of the world economy, namely, the semiconductor integrated circuit industry. The ability and potential of this field to fabricate small structures for use in other fields such as optics, physics, materials science, chemistry, biology, medicine, and mechanics is also being quickly realized by both researchers and industry. Yet, with the exception of some materials growth techniques, the field of nanofabrication has been somewhat confined to the two lateral dimensions which are defined by the plane of a smooth solid surface. This is partly due to depth-of-field issues which are important and common to optical and electron beam lithography, the difficulty of plasma etching a wide variety of materials to form high aspect ratio structures, and the difficulty of characterizing fine structures in three dimensions, to name a few. The National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN), an NSF-sponsored network of five university nanofabrication laboratories, has been tasked with providing user-facility service to the US nanofabrication community (including industry, academia, and government laboratories), and to provide technical leadership to that same community toward the solutions of problems. The NNUN consists of sites at five universities, with two sites (Cornell and Stanford) serving as primaries with the remaining three (Howard, Penn State, and University of California at Santa Barbara) serving as subcontractors. Together, these five University laboratories unite expertise in silicon processing (Stanford), nanometer lithography (Cornell), wide-bandgap materials (Howard), novel materials (Penn State), and III-V processing (UCSB), all within the common theme of nanofabrication. To date, the Network is serving a user base which is rapidly approaching 1000 users, service which is implemented and enhanced by project referral s, sharing of laboratory and teaching techniques and information, and complementary capabilities. This award will find acquisition of a: A Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) System: This system, to be located at the Cornell site, will permit the chemical mechanical etchback of structures for planarization and bring CMP capabilities to the NNUN; Reactive Ion Etching Additions: Due to the importance of anisotropic etching to the nanofabrication of 3D structures, Penn State will add an RIE for materials such as transparent oxides, piezoelectrics, and plastics.