Massively Parallel Nanolithography Using Localized Electron Emission

光学光刻是将掩模上固定的几何图形转移到晶片上以制造半导体芯片和其他纳米技术产品的关键使能过程。目前每个工具的成本超过5000万美元，口罩的成本远远超过工具的成本。然而，为了提高芯片能力以符合摩尔定律，工具很快就会变得对工业和科学家来说都太昂贵了。此外，目前的工艺不能满足生产更快、功能更多的芯片的长期需求。该奖项支持基础研究，为开发新的光刻技术提供所需的知识。这项研究的结果将为未来的信息技术增长加强美国制造业的基础，并对高性能计算、数据存储、通信、医疗保健和能源领域的应用产生深远影响。该奖项将有助于扩大代表不足的群体在工程研究中的参与，并在多学科和协作的环境中创建教育渠道。扫描电子束写入器可以在不需要昂贵的光掩模的情况下以非常高的分辨率指导半导体芯片的图案，但仅在低吞吐量的情况下。只有使用数以百万计的平行电子束，才有可能实现实际的吞吐量。研究人员一直无法找到一种稳健的方法来产生大量令人满意的亮度和均匀性的光束。这项研究旨在解决这一挑战，并通过将该团队最近在纳米级光学方面的突破转化为低成本的纳米制造方案来实现大规模平行电子束光刻。这项技术使用了一种新型的装置，将光能聚焦到纳米级，并局部激发电子，形成大规模平行的电子束，可以用于大规模无掩模光刻。研究团队将研究局域电子激发的基本原理，建立一个概念验证设备并研究设备响应，并将该设备应用到他们的可扩展纳米制造平台中，以在大范围内演示光刻。

Optical lithography is the critical enabling process of transferring fixed geometric patterns on a mask to wafers to make semiconductor chips and other nanotechnology products. Current tools cost more than 50 million US dollars each, and the costs for masks far outweigh those for tools. Yet, to increase chip capabilities to match Moore's law, tools will soon become too costly for both industry and scientists. Also, the current process cannot meet the long-term demand to produce faster chips with more functions. This award supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge for the development of a new lithography technology. Results from this research will strengthen the U.S. manufacturing foundation for future information-technology growth and profoundly impact applications in high-performance computing, data storage, communications, healthcare and energy. This award will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in engineering research and create an education pipeline in a multidisciplinary and collaborative environment. Scanning electron beam writers can direct pattern semiconductor chips at very high resolution without the need of expensive photomasks but only in low throughput. Practical throughput is possible only by using millions of parallel electron beams. Researchers have been unable to find a robust method to generate a massive number of beams with satisfactory brightness and uniformity. This research is to address this challenge and enable massively-parallel electron-beam lithography by transforming the team's recent breakthroughs in nanoscale optics into a low-cost nanomanufacturing scheme. This technology uses a novel device to focus optical energy at nanoscale and locally excite electrons to form massively-parallel electron beams, which can be used to perform maskless lithography in mass quantities. The research team will investigate the fundamentals of localized electron excitation, build a proof-of-concept device and study device response, and implement the device into their scalable nanomanufacturing platforms to demonstrate lithography over a large area.