High-Throughput Nanometer-Scale Chemical Patterning for Nanomanufacturing

该奖项研究了一种新的大面积图案化方法，以创建具有纳米级分辨率和特征大小的图案。这种新方法将精心设计和成形的聚合物笔阵列与精确的化学和自组装相结合，可以在大范围内达到单纳米分辨率。本项目的研究重点包括：1)开发新的机制来实现高图案保真度，同时最大限度地减少油墨分子的扩散，从而导致图案模糊和分辨率损失；2)开发一种可访问和广泛适用的方法来实现具有单纳米级特征的大面积聚合物邮票；以及3)实现具有纳米级分辨率的大面积特征尺寸可调的图案。教育、培训、研究和纳米制造将与教学、推广和广泛传播紧密结合。学生和博士后将在加州大学洛杉矶分校的跨学科中心加州纳米系统研究所(CNSI)工作，该研究所也将提供分析工具和传播进展。CNSI用户多样化的制造需求将有助于推动这一新方法的开发和应用。该奖项的基础研究将推动纳米光刻技术的发展，通过聚合物笔化学剥离光刻实现大面积高保真纳米级分辨率，这是纳米级图形制作中最大的挑战之一。这项研究将提供一种新的方法来消除软光刻中油墨分子的横向扩散，这种扩散在传统的微接触印刷中将分辨率限制在~100 nm，甚至更差。可以实现特征尺寸小于100 nm的高保真单纳米级精度。所提出的策略将提供在纳米级分辨率下精确控制图案特征尺寸的方法。这项研究将使大规模制造可控的亚5纳米特征成为可能，这是其他方法甚至电子束光刻等系列技术所无法实现的能力。这项技术将开发出通用的、可获得的技术策略，将分辨率推到5纳米或以下。拟议的研究将直接影响纳米制造领域，该领域将通过创新的设计、变革性的、可扩展的、高通量的方法、大大提高的分辨率、对纳米尺度现象和工艺的更好理解以及涉及表面化学、力学、材料科学、电子学和生物学的跨学科研究来推进。这项研究将在从电子学到能源和生物的广泛应用中得到应用，包括等离子体纳米结构器件、单分子生物学研究、生化传感器、可穿戴电子设备、储能和转换设备、滤光片、生物医学设备，由于精确控制图案保真度，性能将得到改善。

This award investigates a new large-area patterning method to create patterns with nanometer-scale resolution and feature size. This new method combines carefully designed and shaped polymer pen arrays with controlled stiffness for lithography with precise chemistry and self-assembly to reach single-nanometer resolution across large areas. This project focuses on the following research thrusts: 1) Develop new mechanisms to achieve high pattern fidelity, while minimizing the diffusion of ink molecules that leads to pattern blurring and thus resolution loss; 2) Develop an accessible and broadly applicable method to achieve large-area polymer stamps with single-nanometer-scale features; and 3) Achieve large-area feature-size-tunable patterning with nanometer-scale resolution. Education, training, research, and nanomanufacturing will be tightly coupled to teaching, outreach, and broad dissemination. Students and post-doctoral candidates will work at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), the interdisciplinary hub at UCLA, which will also provide analysis tools and dissemination of the advances. The diverse fabrication needs of CNSI users will help drive development and application of this new method.The fundamental research from this award will advance nanolithography to realize high-fidelity nanometer-scale resolution over large areas, one of the greatest challenges in nanoscale pattering, via polymer-pen chemical lift-off lithography. The proposed research will provide a new method to eliminate the lateral diffusion of ink molecules in soft lithography, which limits resolution to ~100nm, or worse, in conventional microcontact printing. High-fidelity single-nanometer-scale precision with sub-100nm feature sizes can be realized. The proposed strategies will provide methods to control precisely the feature size of the pattern at nanometer-scale resolution. This research will enable the manufacture of controllable sub-5nm features at large scales, a capability not yet achievable by other means, even serial techniques, such as electron-beam lithography. This technique will develop general, accessible technological strategies to push resolution to and below 5 nm. The proposed research will directly impact the field of nanomanufacturing, which will be advanced by innovative designs, transformative, scalable, high-throughput methods, greatly improved resolution, better understanding of nanoscale phenomena and processing, and interdisciplinary studies involving surface chemistry, mechanics, materials science, electronics, and biology. This research will be applied in a wide range of applications from electronics to energy and biology, including plasmonic nanostructured devices, single-molecule biological studies, biochemical sensors, wearable electronics, energy-storage and conversion devices, optical filters, biomedical devices, with improved performance due to precise control of pattern fidelity.