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Lithography is currently being squeezed between two engineering realities: an extraordinary requirement on resolution for nanoscale manufacturing, and an extraodinary length of time required to form master patterns for nanostructures (by conventional electron-beam lithography). Templating allows much lower-density master patterns to yield complex and controlled self-assembled structures. The result is a technique that bridges lithography and chemistry to realize a whole new kind of nanopatterning.
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Recent Publications
Graphoepitaxy of Self-Assembled Block Copolymers on Two-Dimensional Periodic Patterned Templates
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Bottom-up meets top-down: templating of self-assembly is used to achieve long-range order. Typically block copolymers self-assemble into partially-ordered arrays of structures (in our case ~20-nanometer-diameter spheres of silica) on a substrate. But by including some lithographic posts on the substrate prior to applying the copolymer, we were able to realize well-ordered arrays with controlled orientations that covered large areas on the substrate. |
Scanning-electron micrograph of self-assembled block copolymers (grey) after selective removal of one block component, templated by lithographically-defined posts (white).
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Ion Bita, Joel K. W. Yang, Yeon Sik Jung, Caroline A. Ross, Edwin L. Thomas, and Karl K. Berggren, Science vol. 321, pp. 939 (2008) [link to publications page for electronic access].
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Collaborators
- Prof. Caroline A. Ross (MIT)
- Prof. Edwin L. Thomas (MIT)
- Prof. Vladimir Bulovic (MIT)
Additional
Information
Coverage in the popular press:
Sponsors
- National Research Initiative, INDEX program
- King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Al'Faisal University
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