MRI: Instrument development for deterministic implants of single ions over a nanometer scale

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This Major Research Instrumentation award supports instrument development at State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Polytechnic Institute). The successful completion of the project will help advance the fundamental research on quantum information engineering and quantum computers, by directly providing 9 research groups (with about 7 postdoctoral fellows and 23 graduate students) from 5 universities in the northeast region, with the needed research capability for nanodevice fabrication. Such deterministic nano-implant capability is not available in an industrial setting, and thus the instrument can also benefit the semiconductor industry in its efforts toward new generations of semiconductor devices. In addition, the project will provide grounds for training a postdoctoral researcher involved in the instrument development toward the future nanotechnology instrumentalist. The project will also offer live research examples and lab demos in teaching of 3 undergraduate nano-engineering courses, as well as hands-on research experience for 4 undergraduate students from scientifically underrepresented groups.As the transistor feature size is approaching the physical limit, novel computing paradigms using single atomic-like defects or single dopant atoms in solids, are being considered for the future information technology. The creation of novel quantum device structures like nano-arrays of a single nitrogen-vacancy defect center in diamond or single dopant atom in silicon, requires an accurate control of the number of defects/dopant atoms at each desired nanometer scale location. This is impossible with currently existing ion implantation tools that are used for defect generation and atomic doping in solids. The novelties of the instrument design include: (1) the use of a nanoscale polymer scintillator for tagging the position of single ion implants (2) the coincidence detection of scintillation photons and secondary electrons to ensure the accuracy/reliability for single ion implants, and (3) the integration of the instrument with an existing accelerator to offer a large range of implantation energies, ion species and excellent isotope separation capabilities. The acquired knowledge and experience would also be very helpful for developing other ion beam based instruments/techniques for probing and processing of nanoscale materials, and the findings and results will be disseminated to the research community through conferences, journal publications and the Internet.