{"71924":{"#nid":"71924","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Drawing Nanoscale Features the Fast and Easy Way","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new technique for nanolithography that is extremely fast and capable of being used in a range of environments including air (outside a vacuum) and liquids. Researchers have demonstrated the technique, known as thermochemical nanolithography, as a proof of concept. The technique may allow industry to produce a variety of nanopatterned structures, including nanocircuits, at a speed and scale that could make their manufacture commercially viable. The research, which has potential applications for fields ranging from the electronics industry to nanofluidics to medicine, appeared earlier this year in the journal Nano Letters.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technique is surprisingly simple. Using an atomic force microscope (AFM), researchers heat a silicon tip and run it over a thin polymer film. The heat from the tip induces a chemical reaction at the surface of the film. This reaction changes the film\u0027s chemical reactivity and transforms it from a hydrophobic substance to a hydrophilic one that can stick to other molecules. The technique is extremely fast and can write at speeds faster than millimeters per second. That\u0027s orders of magnitude faster than the widely used dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), which routinely clocks at a speed of 0.0001 millimeters per second.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing the new technique, researchers were able to pattern with dimensions down to 12 nanometers in width in a variety of environments. Other techniques typically require the addition of other chemicals to be transferred to the surface or the presence of strong electric fields. TCNL doesn\u0027t have these requirements and can be used in humid environments outside a vacuum. By using an array of AFM tips developed by IBM, TCNL also has the potential to be massively scalable, allowing users to independently draw features with thousands of tips at a time rather than just one.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Thermochemical nanolithography is a rapid and versatile technique that puts us much closer to achieving the speeds required for commercial applications,\u0022 said Elisa Riedo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Physics. \u0022Because we\u0027re not transferring any materials from the AFM tip to the polymer surface (we are only heating it to change its chemical structure) this method can be intrinsically faster than other techniques.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u0027s the heated AFM tips that are one key to the new technique. Designed and fabricated by a group led by William King at the University of Illinois, the tips can reach temperatures hotter than 1,000 degrees Celsius. They can also be repeatedly heated and cooled 1 million times per second.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The heated tip is the world\u0027s smallest controllable heat source,\u0022 said King.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETCNL is also tunable. By varying the amount of heat, the speed and the distance of the tip to the polymer, researchers can introduce topographical changes or modulate the range of chemical changes produced in the material.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022By changing the chemistry of the polymer, we\u0027ve shown that we can selectively attach new substances, like metal ions or dyes to the patterned regions of the film in order to greatly increase the technique\u0027s functionality,\u0022 said Seth Marder, professor in Tech\u0027s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. Marder\u0027s group developed the thermally switchable polymers used in this study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We expect thermochemical nanolithography to be widely adopted because it\u0027s conceptually simple and can be broadly applied,\u0022 said Marder. \u0022The scope is limited only by one\u0027s imagination to develop new chemistries and applications.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor nanolithography to be commercially viable, it must be able to write at high speeds, be used in a variety of environments and write on a variety of materials. While the technique demonstrated here doesn\u0027t yet allow writing at the centimeters per second rate that would be ideal, it does put researchers much closer to the goal than previous techniques. Once perfected, nanolithography could be used to draw nanocircuits for the electronics industry, create nanochannels for nanofluidics devices or be adapted for drug delivery or biosensing technologies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research was supported by the National Science Foundation\u0027s Center for Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Georgia Institute of Technology Research Foundation, the GT College of Sciences Cutting Edge Research Award and ONR Nanoelectronics. In addition to Riedo, Marder and King, the interdisciplinary research team consisted of Robert Szoszkiewicz, Takashi Okada, Simon Jones and Tai-De Li from Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScientists at Georgia Tech have developed a new technique for nanolithography that is extremely fast and can be used in liquids and outside of a vacuum. The technique could help make the manufacturing of nanocircuits commercially viable.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Technique may make nanocircuit production easier"}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2007-08-28 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:05","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2007-09-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2007-09-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"71925":{"id":"71925","type":"image","title":"GIT Figure","body":null,"created":"1449177414","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:16:54","changed":"1475894647","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:07"}},"media_ids":["71925"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2286","name":"nano"},{"id":"2287","name":"nanocircuits"},{"id":"2285","name":"nanolithography"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}