CAREER: Three-Dimensional Nanolithography with Inexpensive Hardware

职业：使用廉价硬件的三维纳米光刻

• 批准号: 2022818
• 负责人: Chih-Hao Chang
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2022-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2022818&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Three; Dimensional; Nanolithography; Inexpensive

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will pioneer a novel three-dimensional nanolithography system using light interactions with colloidal nanoparticles. The ability to create a three-dimensional object at the nanoscale has enabled unique material properties and device performances. However, almost all of the existing lithography systems are based on complicated mechanical, electronic, and optical hardware that can be prohibitively expensive. This award supports fundamental research to provide the required knowledge for three-dimensional nanolithography that is based solely on colloid-light interactions instead of current expensive lithography, hence nanolithography with inexpensive hardware. The new process focuses on colloidal nanoparticles, which will serve as elementary building blocks that can manipulate and shape light for nanoscale patterning. This system will enable scalable printing of complex three-dimensional nanostructures for needleless drug delivery, multifunctional materials, and stretchable sensors. The results of this research will find broad application in biomedical, energy, electronic, and aerospace industries that will benefit the U.S. economy and the advance its manufacturing sector. This research is interdisciplinary and will further understandings in nanotechnology, physics, materials science, and engineering. The integrated research and educational goals will greatly increase engineering education in society through direct engagement of K-12 students, teachers, parents, and the local community in nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing. This research aims to overcome the key barriers to existing 3D nanolithography systems, which can have high operating cost, limited patterning resolution, and/or low fabrication throughput. State-of-the-art direct-write approaches, such as electron-beam, focused-ion-beam, two-photon lithography, can achieve fine features and have played critical roles in laboratory device demonstrations. However, these systems require serial patterning and layer-by-layer processes that are time intensive and difficult to scale. This research diverges from the traditional hardware-intensive approaches to lithography, and replaces them with colloidal nanoparticles that are illuminated to generate a wealth of near-field optical nanopatterns. By tailoring the light properties and particle parameters, such interactions will be harnessed as a novel mechanism to pattern complex 3D geometries. This approach combines the cost-effectiveness of "bottom-up" self-assembly, while retaining the user-specified pattern controllability of "top-down" lithography. The research team will perform rigorous modeling of near-field light-particle interactions to investigate the image formation mechanism, develop fabrication processes to control structure geometry and material composition, mitigate process defects and increase yield in a scale-up prototype system, and demonstrate continuous printing of complex 3D nanostructures into novel functional devices.

该教师早期职业发展（CAREER）资助将开创一种利用光与胶体纳米颗粒相互作用的新型三维纳米光刻系统。在纳米尺度上创建三维物体的能力实现了独特的材料特性和设备性能。然而，几乎所有现有的光刻系统都基于复杂的机械、电子和光学硬件，这些硬件可能非常昂贵。该奖项支持基础研究，为三维纳米光刻提供所需的知识，该知识仅基于胶体-光相互作用，而不是当前昂贵的光刻，因此纳米光刻需要廉价的硬件。新工艺的重点是胶体纳米粒子，它将作为基本构件，可以操纵和塑造光以形成纳米级图案。该系统将实现复杂三维纳米结构的可扩展打印，用于无针药物输送、多功能材料和可拉伸传感器。这项研究的结果将在生物医学、能源、电子和航空航天工业中得到广泛应用，这将有利于美国经济并促进其制造业的发展。这项研究是跨学科的，将进一步加深对纳米技术、物理学、材料科学和工程学的理解。综合研究和教育目标将通过 K-12 学生、教师、家长和当地社区直接参与纳米技术和纳米制造，极大地提高社会工程教育。这项研究旨在克服现有 3D 纳米光刻系统的关键障碍，这些系统可能具有高运营成本、有限的图案分辨率和/或低制造吞吐量。最先进的直写方法，例如电子束、聚焦离子束、双光子光刻，可以实现精细的特征，并在实验室设备演示中发挥了关键作用。然而，这些系统需要串行图案化和逐层工艺，这些工艺耗时且难以扩展。这项研究不同于传统的硬件密集型光刻方法，而是用胶体纳米粒子取代它们，胶体纳米粒子被照射后会产生大量的近场光学纳米图案。通过定制光属性和粒子参数，这种相互作用将被用作一种新颖的机制来图案化复杂的 3D 几何形状。这种方法结合了“自下而上”自组装的成本效益，同时保留了“自上而下”光刻的用户指定图案可控性。研究团队将对近场光粒子相互作用进行严格的建模，以研究图像形成机制，开发制造工艺来控制结构几何形状和材料成分，减少工艺缺陷并提高放大原型系统的产量，并演示连续将复杂的 3D 纳米结构打印成新颖的功能设备。