Massively Parallel Nanolithography Using Localized Electron Emission

光学光刻是将掩模上的固定几何图案转移到晶圆上以制造半导体芯片和其他纳米技术产品的关键过程。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，为了提高芯片的性能以符合摩尔定律，对于工业界和科学家来说，工具很快就会变得过于昂贵。此外，目前的工艺无法满足生产速度更快、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。这项研究的结果将加强美国制造业未来信息技术发展的基础，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工程研究中代表性不足的群体的参与，并在多学科和协作环境中创建教育管道。扫描电子束写入器可以直接模式半导体芯片在非常高的分辨率，而不需要昂贵的掩模，但只有在低吞吐量。只有使用数以百万计的平行电子束才能实现实际吞吐量。研究人员一直无法找到一种可靠的方法来产生大量具有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纳米制造方案，实现大规模平行电子束光刻。该技术采用了一种新颖的装置，将光能聚焦在纳米级，并在局部激发电子形成大量平行电子束，可用于进行大量无掩膜光刻。研究小组将研究局部电子激发的基础，建立一个概念验证设备和研究设备响应，并将该设备应用到他们的可扩展纳米制造平台上，以在大范围内演示光刻技术。

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.