Nanocrystal/Polymer Hybrid Building Blocks for Nanofabrication

各种不同尺寸、形状和组成的纳米材料的合成和表征取得了很大进展。然而，由于缺乏可靠和经济有效的方法将纳米尺度材料制成适合器件和功能系统的结构，因此在应用中存在一个重大瓶颈。这里提出的计划旨在开发能够促进纳米晶体加工的混合材料，特别是使它们与现成的微加工技术兼容。这里考虑的杂化材料将由包裹在单分散聚合物胶体中的无机纳米晶体组成。这种结合提供了一个有吸引力的机会，将纳米材料的独特性能与聚合物的可加工性相结合，为包含可调谐纳米结构的设备和系统的制造和制造提供了许多可能性。相容性与现成的微加工工艺，以建立有组织的纳米晶体阵列将被检查。这里考虑的混合构建块可以将纳米级材料集成到目前采用的自上而下的制造和加工方法中，潜在地加速了电子和光子学等领域的许多应用的实现。多学科方法，包括化学合成，微加工，显微镜和光学和电学表征是本研究的核心，并提供了一个重要的教育组成部分。这里要解决的多方面的挑战将为新兴跨学科领域的研究人员提供充足的教育机会。本研究计划将探讨纳米材料的不同主题，也将作为本科和研究生课程的几个主题的基础。

Much progress has been made in the synthesis and characterization of a variety of nanoscale materials with varying size, shape and composition. However, a significant bottleneck exists in applications due to the lack of reliable and cost-effective means of patterning or assembling nanoscale materials into structures suitable for devices and functional systems. The program proposed here aims to develop hybrid materials that can facilitate processing of nanocrystals especially to make them compatible with readily available microfabrication techniques. The hybrid materials considered here will consist of inorganic nanocrystals encapsulated in monodisperse polymer colloids. This combination provides an attractive opportunity to merge unique properties of nanoscale materials with the processibility of polymers opening up numerous possibilities in fabrication and manufacturing of devices and systems containing tunable nanostructures. Compatibility with readily available microfabrication processes to build organized nanocrystal arrays will be examined.Hybrid building blocks considered here can integrate nanoscale materials into currently employed top-down approaches to fabrication and processing, potentially expediting the realization of numerous applications in areas such as electronics and photonics. The multidisciplinary approach including chemical synthesis, microfabrication, microscopy and optical and electrical characterization is central to this research and provides an important educational component. Multifaceted challenges to be tackled here will provide ample educational opportunities needed for researchers in emerging cross-disciplinary fields. Diverse topics on nanoscale materials to be explored in this research program will also serve as a basis for several topics for undergraduate and graduate courses.