NER: An Innovative Intermediate-Layer Lithography Approach For Patterning Conducting Polymers

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This proposal was received in response to Nanoscale Science and Engineering initiative, NSF 04-043, category Nanoscale Exploratory Research (NER). The objective of this NER research is to demonstrate the feasibility of generating conducting polymer wires down to 30nm. The approach is to first coat a non-conducting polymer intermediate layer between a substrate and a conducting polymer film and then pattern the conducting polymer layer through a mold insertion. The discovery of high conductivity in doped polyacetylene in 1971 (garnering the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the three discovering scientists) has attracted considerable interest in the application of polymers as the semiconducting and conducting materials due to their promising potential to replace silicon and metals in building devices. However, existing techniques present significant technical challenges in producing conducting polymer microstructures, in particular, nanostructures. It is believed that this research will solve these challenges and suggest a dramatic change in the way that polymer devices and systems are created. Education and research, at both graduate and undergraduate levels, are deeply and mutually interdependent. This project will incorporate two new teaching modules into two courses that the principal investigator is teaching, "BioMEMS" and "Microfabrication Applications and Device Fabrication." In addition to international micro/nano manufacturing communities, this project will disseminate the information to Grambling State University (a neighboring minority-serving university) via two presentations and to K-12 schoolteachers and students through a so-call "potato action" (i.e., use the video clips to help visualize nanotechnology materials on a web site that will be established for this purpose).