Shrinkable and Stretchable NanoManufacturing

该奖项为一种新的纳米制造策略的发展提供了资金：可收缩和可拉伸纳米制造。这些低成本和可扩展的纳米制造工具是基于热塑性材料和成型技术。研究重点是在可编程软光刻中使用热塑性材料来确定可以从一个主图案开始制造的大面积纳米图案的下限（可收缩）和上限（可拉伸）。从一个周期格主开始的分层和低对称格图的产生也将被研究。最终，这些新工具的目标是通过在晶圆尺度区域上进行多次收缩和成型，在特征尺寸和晶格间距上实现10纳米的分辨率。如果成功，这项工作将解决纳米制造中的两个主要挑战：(1)纳米尺度图案的原型和缩放；(2)降低制造的加工和材料成本。计划中的策略可以克服这两个问题，同时为未来如何进行周期性和有序纳米结构的纳米制造提供了路线图。重要的是，关键因素只取决于现成的聚合物和成型方法，具有预先存在的基础设施。成型消除了对光源的需求，原则上可以实现10纳米以下的特性。此外，由于热塑性衬底已经在工业中加工（例如收缩包装车辆），计划的纳米制造策略可以直接集成到当前设置中，以降低整体生命周期成本。

This award provides funding for the development of a new nanofabrication strategy: shrinkable and stretchable nanomanufacturing. These low-cost and scalable nanomanufacturing tools are based on thermoplastic materials and molding techniques. The research focuses on using thermoplastic materials in programmable soft lithography to determine the lower limits (shrinkable) and upper limits (stretchable) of large-area nanopatterns that can be fabricated starting from one master pattern. The production of hierarchical and low-symmetry lattice patterns beginning with a periodic lattice master will also be investigated. Ultimately, the goal of these new tools is to achieve 10-nm resolution in both feature sizes and lattice spacing using multiple cycles of shrinking and molding over wafer-scale areas.If successful, this work will address two major challenges in nanomanufacturing: (1) prototyping and scaling of nanoscale patterns; and (2) reducing the processing and materials cost of fabrication. The planned strategy can overcome both problems while introducing a roadmap for how nanofabrication can be carried out in the future for periodic and ordered nanostructures. Importantly, the key factors only depend on readily available polymers and molding methods having a pre-existing infrastructure. Molding eliminates the need for a light source and can, in principle, access sub 10-nm features. Also, since thermoplastic substrates are already processed in industry (e.g. shrink-wrapped vehicles), the planned nanomanufacturing strategy can be directly integrated in current settings to reduce overall life cycle costs.