GOALI: Scaling-up Electronic Purification of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes via Nanoscale Thermocapillary Flows for High Performance Transistors

从历史上看，微电子工业一直在推动集成电路技术的发展，缩小硅晶体管的尺寸，降低其功耗和成本。对于卫星技术等战略电子应用，先进材料的开发是必不可少的。单壁碳纳米管已成为这些应用的重要候选材料。业界认为，使用纳米管制造的电子器件可能最终取代硅基器件用于逻辑应用；但众所周知，纳米管射频晶体管是无线系统中重要的高性能模拟元件。提高高性能的关键是在晶圆规模上获得高纯度（99.999%半导体纳米管）的半导体纳米管排列薄膜。扩大纳米管的电子净化是关键的挑战。最近，伊利诺伊大学的研究小组开发了一种纯化方法，使生长的排列纳米管达到了这些令人生畏的要求。这项与工业界学术联络资助机会（GOALI）奖将支持将该净化过程扩展到晶圆级所需的工作，并与诺斯鲁普·格鲁曼公司合作，将其整合到纳米管场效应晶体管的记录过程中。这项工作将具有巨大的社会效益，影响无线技术的功耗和性能，并将成为该领域首批可扩展纳米制造开发工作之一。这项工作将为未来的工程师在这种新的制造模式中提供一个培训平台。此外，这种跨学科的努力将通过伊利诺斯州和诺斯鲁普·格鲁曼公司的夏季研究项目，扩大代表性不足的群体在研究中的参与。化学气相沉积法制备的单壁碳纳米管排列亚单层薄膜为高性能电子应用提供了一个很有前途的材料平台。然而，薄膜的电子纯度是一个关键问题。最近，伊利诺伊大学的研究小组开发了一种基于热阻剂的纯化方法，这种热阻剂在加工过程中作为半导体纳米管的蚀刻屏障。该工艺利用有机薄膜中的纳米级热毛细管流动作为一种加工策略，从单壁纳米管排列阵列中完全、选择性地去除金属纳米管。与当前微电子制造工具的兼容性表明，它可以作为纳米管基板纯化的可扩展技术。微波激发导致通过该过程高效，选择性地去除金属管，使纯度达到100%。研究小组将扩大热毛细净化方法用于晶圆级制造，并将其引入诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司的晶体管加工工作流程。一个大容量的微波反应堆将被设计、组装和开发。最终，高性能、低功耗、低噪声的线性碳纳米管放大器将在晶圆级上制造出来。

Historically the microelectronics industry has been driving integrated circuit technology development, shrinking silicon transistor sizes, reducing their power consumption and lowering their cost. For strategic electronic applications like satellite technologies, advanced materials development is essential. Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes have emerged as an important material candidate for these applications. The industry believes that electronic devices fabricated using nanotubes may eventually replace silicon-based devices for logic applications; but it is also well known that nanotube-based radiofrequency transistors are important as high-performance analog components in wireless systems. Key to the advance of high performance is the availability of aligned films of semiconducting nanotubes with high purity (99.999 percent semiconducting nanotubes) at the wafer scale. Scaling-up electronic purification of nanotubes is the key challenge. Recently the Illinois team developed a path to purification for grown aligned nanotubes at levels that meet these daunting requirements. This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) award will support the work needed to scale this purification process to the wafer-scale, and integrate it into the process of record for nanotube field effect transistors in collaboration with Northrup Grumman Corporation. This work will have a great societal benefit, impacting power consumption and performance in wireless technologies, and will serve as one of the first scalable nanomanufacturing development efforts in the area. The work will provide a training platform for future engineers in this new manufacturing paradigm. Moreover this interdisciplinary effort will broaden participation of underrepresented groups in the research through use of the Summer Research Programs at Illinois and Northrup Grumman Corporation. Aligned sub-monolayer films of single walled carbon nanotubes grown by chemical vapor deposition represent a promising materials platform for high-performance electronic applications. However, film electronic purity is a critical issue. Recently the Illinois team developed a path to purification for as-grown aligned materials based on utilization of a thermal resist which serves as an etch barrier for semiconducting nanotubes during processing. The process uses nanoscale thermocapillary flows in thin organic films as a processing strategy for complete, selective removal of metallic nanotubes from aligned arrays of single walled nanotubes. Compatibility with current microelectronics fabrication tools suggests it can serve as a scalable technique for nanotube substrate purification. Microwave excitation leads to efficient, selective removal of metallic tubes via this process, enabling 100 percent purity. The research team will scale-up thermocapillary purification methods for wafer-scale manufacture and will introduce them into the transistor processing workflow at Northrup Grumman. A high volume microwave reactor will be designed, assembled, and developed. Ultimately high-performance, low-power, low noise linear carbon nanotube amplifiers will be fabricated at the wafer-scale.