High Throughput Magnetic Optical Nano-Milling of Thin Layer Materials with Designed Nano-Chisels

高通量、大规模的亚100 nm纳米结构的加工在电子、环境、能源、医疗设备和光学工业(如药物输送膜、超滤分离技术、生物分子分离的纳米流体器件、固体氧化物燃料电池的衬底)中有着广泛的应用。对能够以高精度、高产量并以成本效益的方式在纳米尺度上对表面进行图案化的技术的需求日益增长。目前，使用电子束光刻(EBL)、聚焦离子束(FIB)光刻、尖端增强扫描探针显微镜(SPM)和光学纳米光刻可以获得所需的纳米级图形精度。这些方法通常存在速度慢、面积小、吞吐量低等缺点。激光加工的分辨率受到衍射和激光波长的限制。该奖项支持对一种新的纳米机械加工技术的科学研究，以在各种薄材料中以高产量产生超细纳米孔阵列。该项目将混合能量场引入到激光材料加工中，突破了激光波长的衍射极限，突破了大规模激光微加工的障碍，从而推动了基础纳米加工技术的发展。这项研究的结果可以实现许多材料的按需纳米机械加工，具有高效率、产品质量、可调性和灵活性，这在以前被认为是不可能的。PI参与了RUE和RET计划，致力于让妇女和代表不足的少数群体参与研究活动，并将利用普渡计划让高中教师接触他的研究。该项目将惠及电磁学、等离子体学和机械加工等多个研究领域。该项目旨在开发一种新型的混合纳米加工工艺，即磁光纳米研磨，在薄层衬底上制备大面积纳米通道阵列。研究的目的是定量地了解磁光纳米球磨工艺参数与相关物理机制之间的关系，并确定在各种薄膜衬底上形成所需图案的工艺条件。具体地说，本项目将建立基于物理的磁光纳米铣削计算模型，描述复合加工过程中激光-纳米颗粒-衬底的相互作用，并预测铣削速度、光热诱导相变、激光能量传输等重要物理现象。该项目将通过对聚合物膜的磁光纳米球磨重要参数的实验测量来验证所开发的模型。研究了不同的工艺条件对纳米孔的温度分布、纳米球磨速度和纳米孔轮廓的影响。在此过程中，还将研究薄膜衬底和纳米颗粒之间的相互作用。该项目将促进印第安纳州高中教师、研究生和本科生以及代表不足的群体的研究和教育机会。研究成果将被纳入本科生/研究生课程开发，并通过在网上发布本项目产生的研究和学习代码以及完整的文件和教程，为NanHUB做出贡献。

High throughput large scale nanomachining of sub-100nm nanostructure has lots of applications in electronics, environmental, energy, medical devices, and optical industries (e.g. membranes in drug delivery, ultrafiltration for separations technologies, nanofluidic devices for the separation of biomolecules, substrates for solid oxide fuel cells). There is an increasing demand for technologies capable of patterning surfaces at the nanoscale with high precision, high throughput, and in a cost effective manner. Currently, the desired nanoscale patterning accuracy can be achieved using electron-beam lithography (EBL), focused ion-beam (FIB) lithography, tip enhanced scanning probe microscopy (SPM), and optical nanolithography. These methods usually suffer from being slow, small area and low throughput. The resolution of laser machining is limited by diffraction and the wavelength of lasers. This award supports scientific investigations on a new nanomachining technique to generate ultra-fine nanohole arrays in various thin materials with high throughput. This project will advance fundamental nanomachining technology by bringing hybrid energy field into laser materials processing, and breaking the barrier of large scale laser micromachining from the diffraction limit of laser wavelength. The results from this research can realize on-demand nanomachining in many materials with high efficiency, product quality, tunability, and flexibility that is considered impossible before. The PI is involved in the RUE and RET program, is committed to involving women and underrepresented minorities in research activities, and will leverage a Purdue program to expose high school instructors to his research. The proposed project will benefit many research areas such as electromagnetism, plasmonics and machining.This projects aims to develop on a novel hybrid nanomachining process, namely magnetic-optical-nano-milling, to produce large area nanochannel arrays in thin layer substrates. The research objective is to quantitatively understand the relationship between process parameters and associated physical mechanisms in magnetic-optical-nano-milling and determine processing conditions for desired patterns in various thin film substrates. Specifically, this project will formulate a physics-based computational model for magnetic-optical-nano-milling, which will delineate the laser-nanoparticle-substrate interaction during the hybrid machining process and predict the important physical phenomena such as milling speed, photothermal induced phase change, laser energy transportation. The project will verify the developed model through experimental measurements of important parameters in magnetic-optical-nano-milling of polymer membrane. The effects of various processing conditions on the temperature distribution, nano-milling rate and profile of nanoholes will be studied. The interplay between the thin film substrates and nanoparticles during the process will also be investigated. This project will promote research and education opportunities for high school teachers, graduate and undergraduates, under-represented groups in Indiana. The research outcomes will be integrated into undergraduate/graduate course development, and contributed to nanoHUB by launching research and learning codes resulted from this project online with full documentation and tutorials.