Patterning Processes for Polymer Brushes to Direct Assembly

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Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Activity: Patterned polymer brushes, that is, thinfilms of polymers end anchored to surfaces are becoming increasingly important in a numberof advanced technology applications ranging from microelectronics to biotechnology. Apatterned polymer brush in comparison is one that is attached to a surface in a spatiallydefined micron or nanometer-sized region. A focus of the proposed research will be toexamine the synthesis of di- and triblock copolymer brushes and to evaluate in detailtheir polymerization and microstructure. A second focus of this proposal will be topattern polymer brushes at length scales comparable to brush length and to investigatetheir behavior and microstructure in these confined regions. Patterning methods willinclude e-beam and EUV lithography as well as near-field scanning optical methods. Ifsuccessful, this study will provide an exciting opportunity to overcome many of thebarriers currently encountered in small scale (~10 nm) structure formation and at the sametime provide an excellent model system for exploring the converging length scales intop-down (lithography) and bottom-up (self-assembly) processing. We expect that thisconvergence will lead to interesting synergies and may enable directed assembly of theblock copolymer brushes. Such an approach could bridge the gap between the limits ofcurrent lithographic methods (50 nm) and the need to achieve nanostructures as small as10 nm. The proposed research will require expertise in polymer synthesis, lithographicpatterning and analytical methods capable of characterizing the small-scale structures weplan to produce. To aid us in the characterization of these new materials, we will makeuse of our collaborations to investigate the patterned block copolymer brushes using arange of synchrotron based analytical methods including X-ray reflectometry, grazingincidence (GI) SAXS and near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) studies. Broader Impacts Resulting from the Proposed Activity: This program will engage motivatedundergraduate researchers throughout the course of the proposed research program.Students will be connected with graduate student mentors and will participate in allaspects of the research program. REU students from programs at Cornell will take partduring the summer. Participants in this program will take part in outreach activitiesaimed at communicating the use of patterned polymer brushes. We will also provideeducational samples of patterned brushes to interested teachers during participation inCornell high school teacher outreach activities. A number of companies will collaboratewith us on our research activities helping to carry out patterning studies. Both graduatestudents and especially undergraduate students will be encouraged to carry out workinternships with our collaborators.