Collaborative Research: Understanding the Formation and Separation of Nanoscale Contacts

合作研究：了解纳米级接触的形成和分离

• 批准号: 1537613
• 负责人: Ashlie Martini
• 金额: $ 25.13万
• 依托单位: University of California - Merced
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1537613&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Understanding; Formation; Separation

As the size of electronic devices shrinks to the nanometer scale, new technologies are required to manufacture and characterize them. Many of these new approaches rely on a nano-sized stylus selectively making contact with a surface, and then modifying or measuring the contacted region. The function, reliability, and precision of these techniques are determined by the properties of the contact, especially the adhesion force, the area of contact, and the deformation of the underlying material. This award supports fundamental research to understand the physics, chemistry, and materials science that govern the formation and separation of contacts at these length scales. The new insights into nanoscale contacts will guide the optimization of existing techniques and the development of novel approaches, helping to keep the U.S. at the forefront of advanced manufacturing and technology. The investigation is being conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, and incorporates specific programs to include participation by people from underrepresented groups. Nanocontact behavior will be investigated for chemically and structurally diverse materials, with scientific and technological relevance. Nanocontact experiments will be conducted with in situ transmission electron microscopy that will provide nanonewton force resolution and Angstrom-scale structural information. The experiments will be complemented by molecular dynamics simulations of the same nanocontacts that provide atomic-scale detail about phenomena occurring within the materials and inside the perimeter of the contact, which cannot be viewed directly in experiment. These techniques will be used to characterize adhesion, deformation under load, and load-dependent contact area for a variety of contacts. Taken together, the data will enable evaluation of competing hypotheses that describe nanoscale contact. These insights will have direct impact on probe-based nanomanufacturing and on probe-based microscopy, both of which require precise understanding and control of the tip/sample contact. More generally, the in situ nanoscale testing in this program will yield insights that are relevant to larger-scale applications in which interfaces between materials consist of many nanoscale asperity contacts.

随着电子设备的尺寸缩小到纳米级，需要新的技术来制造和表征它们。其中许多新方法依赖于纳米尺寸的触笔选择性地与表面接触，然后修改或测量接触的区域。这些技术的功能、可靠性和精度取决于接触的特性，特别是粘附力、接触面积和底层材料的变形。该奖项支持基础研究，以了解在这些长度范围内管理接触形成和分离的物理、化学和材料科学。对纳米级接触的新见解将指导现有技术的优化和新方法的开发，帮助美国保持在先进制造和技术的前沿。这项调查是由一个跨学科的研究人员团队进行的，并纳入了具体的计划，以包括来自代表性不足群体的人的参与。将研究化学和结构不同的材料的纳米接触行为，这与科学和技术有关。纳米接触实验将用原位透射电子显微镜进行，它将提供纳米牛顿力的分辨率和埃斯特罗姆尺度的结构信息。这些实验将得到对相同纳米接触的分子动力学模拟的补充，这些模拟提供了材料内部和接触周长内发生的现象的原子尺度细节，而这些现象在实验中无法直接观察到。这些技术将用于表征各种触点的粘附力、载荷下的变形以及与载荷相关的接触面积。综上所述，这些数据将使描述纳米级接触的相互竞争的假设得到评估。这些见解将对基于探针的纳米制造和基于探针的显微镜产生直接影响，这两者都需要对尖端/样品接触的精确理解和控制。更广泛地说，该计划中的原位纳米级测试将产生与更大规模的应用相关的见解，在这些应用中，材料之间的界面由许多纳米级的粗糙接触组成。