NER: An Innovative Intermediate-Layer Lithography Approach For Patterning Conducting Polymers

这项建议是为了响应纳米科学和工程倡议，NSF 04-043，纳米探索性研究(NER)类别。这项NER研究的目的是证明产生30 nm以下的导电聚合物导线的可行性。该方法是首先在衬底和导电聚合物膜之间涂覆非导电聚合物中间层，然后通过模具插入来图案该导电聚合物层。1971年在掺杂聚乙炔中发现高电导率(因三位发现的科学家而获得2000年诺贝尔化学奖)引起了人们对聚合物作为半导体和导电材料的应用的极大兴趣，因为它们在建筑设备中有望取代硅和金属。然而，现有的技术在制造导电聚合物微结构，特别是纳米结构方面提出了重大的技术挑战。人们相信，这项研究将解决这些挑战，并表明聚合物设备和系统的创建方式将发生戏剧性的变化。教育和研究，无论是研究生还是本科生，都是深度和相互依存的。该项目将把两个新的教学模块整合到首席研究员正在教授的两门课程--“生物微机械”和“微制造应用与器件制造”中。除国际微型/纳米制造社区外，该项目还将通过两次演讲向格拉姆林州立大学(邻近的一所为少数群体服务的大学)传播信息，并通过所谓的“土豆行动”向K-12学校的教师和学生传播信息(即，利用视频剪辑帮助在为此目的建立的网站上可视化纳米技术材料)。

This proposal was received in response to Nanoscale Science and Engineering initiative, NSF 04-043, category Nanoscale Exploratory Research (NER). The objective of this NER research is to demonstrate the feasibility of generating conducting polymer wires down to 30nm. The approach is to first coat a non-conducting polymer intermediate layer between a substrate and a conducting polymer film and then pattern the conducting polymer layer through a mold insertion. The discovery of high conductivity in doped polyacetylene in 1971 (garnering the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the three discovering scientists) has attracted considerable interest in the application of polymers as the semiconducting and conducting materials due to their promising potential to replace silicon and metals in building devices. However, existing techniques present significant technical challenges in producing conducting polymer microstructures, in particular, nanostructures. It is believed that this research will solve these challenges and suggest a dramatic change in the way that polymer devices and systems are created. Education and research, at both graduate and undergraduate levels, are deeply and mutually interdependent. This project will incorporate two new teaching modules into two courses that the principal investigator is teaching, "BioMEMS" and "Microfabrication Applications and Device Fabrication." In addition to international micro/nano manufacturing communities, this project will disseminate the information to Grambling State University (a neighboring minority-serving university) via two presentations and to K-12 schoolteachers and students through a so-call "potato action" (i.e., use the video clips to help visualize nanotechnology materials on a web site that will be established for this purpose).