CAREER: Three-Dimensional Nanolithography with Inexpensive Hardware

这个教师早期职业发展（CAREER）补助金将开创一种新型的三维纳米光刻系统，使用光与胶体纳米粒子的相互作用。在纳米尺度上创建三维物体的能力使独特的材料特性和器件性能成为可能。然而，几乎所有现有的光刻系统都是基于复杂的机械、电子和光学硬件，这些硬件可能非常昂贵。该奖项支持基础研究，为三维纳米光刻提供所需的知识，该三维纳米光刻仅基于胶体-光相互作用，而不是当前昂贵的光刻，因此具有廉价硬件的纳米光刻。新工艺的重点是胶体纳米颗粒，它们将作为基本构建模块，可以操纵和塑造光以形成纳米级图案。该系统将实现复杂三维纳米结构的可扩展打印，用于无针药物输送，多功能材料和可拉伸传感器。这项研究的结果将在生物医学，能源，电子和航空航天工业中得到广泛的应用，这将有利于美国经济和制造业的发展。这项研究是跨学科的，将进一步了解纳米技术，物理学，材料科学和工程。综合研究和教育目标将大大增加工程教育在社会通过K-12学生，教师，家长和当地社区在纳米技术和纳米制造的直接参与。这项研究旨在克服现有的3D纳米光刻系统的关键障碍，这些系统可能具有高运营成本，有限的图案化分辨率和/或低制造吞吐量。最先进的直写方法，如电子束，聚焦离子束，双光子光刻，可以实现精细的功能，并在实验室设备演示中发挥了关键作用。然而，这些系统需要连续图案化和逐层工艺，这是时间密集的并且难以缩放。这项研究偏离了传统的硬件密集型光刻方法，并将其替换为胶体纳米粒子，这些纳米粒子被照射以产生丰富的近场光学纳米粒子。通过调整光特性和粒子参数，这种相互作用将被利用作为一种新的机制来图案化复杂的3D几何形状。这种方法结合了“自下而上”自组装的成本效益，同时保留了“自上而下”光刻的用户指定的图案可控性。研究团队将对近场光粒子相互作用进行严格建模，以研究图像形成机制，开发制造工艺以控制结构几何形状和材料成分，减轻工艺缺陷并提高放大原型系统的产量，并演示将复杂的3D纳米结构连续打印成新型功能器件。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will pioneer a novel three-dimensional nanolithography system using light interactions with colloidal nanoparticles. The ability to create a three-dimensional object at the nanoscale has enabled unique material properties and device performances. However, almost all of the existing lithography systems are based on complicated mechanical, electronic, and optical hardware that can be prohibitively expensive. This award supports fundamental research to provide the required knowledge for three-dimensional nanolithography that is based solely on colloid-light interactions instead of current expensive lithography, hence nanolithography with inexpensive hardware. The new process focuses on colloidal nanoparticles, which will serve as elementary building blocks that can manipulate and shape light for nanoscale patterning. This system will enable scalable printing of complex three-dimensional nanostructures for needleless drug delivery, multifunctional materials, and stretchable sensors. The results of this research will find broad application in biomedical, energy, electronic, and aerospace industries that will benefit the U.S. economy and the advance its manufacturing sector. This research is interdisciplinary and will further understandings in nanotechnology, physics, materials science, and engineering. The integrated research and educational goals will greatly increase engineering education in society through direct engagement of K-12 students, teachers, parents, and the local community in nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing. This research aims to overcome the key barriers to existing 3D nanolithography systems, which can have high operating cost, limited patterning resolution, and/or low fabrication throughput. State-of-the-art direct-write approaches, such as electron-beam, focused-ion-beam, two-photon lithography, can achieve fine features and have played critical roles in laboratory device demonstrations. However, these systems require serial patterning and layer-by-layer processes that are time intensive and difficult to scale. This research diverges from the traditional hardware-intensive approaches to lithography, and replaces them with colloidal nanoparticles that are illuminated to generate a wealth of near-field optical nanopatterns. By tailoring the light properties and particle parameters, such interactions will be harnessed as a novel mechanism to pattern complex 3D geometries. This approach combines the cost-effectiveness of "bottom-up" self-assembly, while retaining the user-specified pattern controllability of "top-down" lithography. The research team will perform rigorous modeling of near-field light-particle interactions to investigate the image formation mechanism, develop fabrication processes to control structure geometry and material composition, mitigate process defects and increase yield in a scale-up prototype system, and demonstrate continuous printing of complex 3D nanostructures into novel functional devices.