SBIR Phase I: Manufacturable Growth And Purification Of Aligned, Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使碳纳米管（CNT）计算与硅纳米电子学结合的单片3D集成的开发成为可能。通过各种学术研究，利用与CNT集成的硅的纳米电子学的价值已被证明具有巨大的潜力。然而，这种技术从学术界到工业界的过渡一直受到缺乏满足制造要求的CNT材料的阻碍，特别是在对齐，纯度和兼容性方面有待适当探索。单片3D集成将使计算速度和电源效率的改进达到改变游戏规则的水平，为所有人创造更好的计算。提供一种加速研究和开发以改进计算的材料将对5000亿美元的集成电路市场产生改变游戏规则的影响，并可能创造数十亿美元的收入。该项目主要针对纳米电子产业的需求，因为纳米电子产业可能会对该市场产生影响，但生物传感或柔性电子等其他市场也将受益于相同的材料，而且通常规格宽松。该小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将通过提供工业相关材料，大大扩大碳纳米管（CNT）在纳米电子领域的利用。这将使面向应用的纳米电子团队能够推进研发项目。此外，该项目在对齐CNT生长和纯化的基础上的工作将通过将材料扩展到商业制造而使CNT材料社区受益。本论文的研究目标主要有两个方面：1）生长与CMOS兼容的定向碳纳米管; 2）定向碳纳米管的纯化。高度对准的CNT群的生长通常使用与生产线CMOS制造的前端不兼容的催化剂，阻碍了材料与Si集成电路的结合使用。目前用于去除金属CNT的CNT纯化方法遭受破坏关键CNT对准、利用非CMOS兼容材料或需要大量后处理的问题。该项目将开发一种生长工艺和一种纯化工艺，在保持CMOS兼容性的同时保持对准，并利用晶圆级批量工艺进行高通量制造。该净化方案是一种专有方法，必须进行表征和改进，以满足99.99%半导体CNT或更高的严格净化标准。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable the development of monolithic 3D integration of carbon nanotube (CNT) computing in conjunction with silicon nanoelectronics. The value of nanoelectronics utilizing silicon integrated with CNT has been shown to have immense potential through various academic studies. However, the transition of this technology from academia to industry has been stymied by lack of CNT material that meets the manufacturing requirements particularly in terms of alignment, purity, and compatibility to be properly explored. Monolithic 3D integration will enable game-changing levels of improvement to computing speed and power efficiency, creating better computing for all. Providing a material which accelerates research and development for improved computing will create a game changing impact on the $500B integrated circuit market and potentially create billions of dollars in revenue. This project is focused on the needs of the nanoelectronics industry because of the impact possible in that market, but other markets such as biosensing or flexible electronics would benefit from the same materials and often at relaxed specifications.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will greatly expand the utilization of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in nanoelectronics by making industrially relevant material available. This will allow application oriented nanoelectronics teams to move forward with R&D projects. Further, the project's work on the fundamentals of aligned CNT growth and purification will benefit the CNT materials community by the extension of the material into commercial manufacturing. The research objectives are on two fronts: 1) growth of CMOS compatible aligned CNTs and 2) purification of aligned CNTs. Growth of highly aligned CNT populations has typically utilized catalysts which are not compatible with front end of line CMOS fabrication, hindering the use of material in conjunction with Si integrated circuits. Current methods of CNT purification to remove metallic CNTs suffer from either destroying the critical CNT alignment, utilization of non-CMOS compatible materials, or the need of extensive post-processing. This project will develop a growth process and a purification process that preserves alignment while maintaining CMOS compatibility and utilizes wafer scale batch processes that allow high throughput manufacturing. The purification scheme is a proprietary method which must be characterized and refined to meet the exacting purification standards of 99.99% semiconducting CNTs or better.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.