To better engineer nanostructures for the many enabling technologies such as information technology, energy technology, and bio-medical applications, there is a strong need to study the energy transport processes on the nano and ultrafast scales simultaneously. Tools allowing both ultra fast and ultra high resolution imaging do not currently exist. To address this challenge and to bring to the scientific community a new characterization tool for nanotechnology development, the PI Ronggui Yang and the co-PI Margaret Murnane will collaborate to develop a high temporal and high spatial resolution photo-thermal imaging system using high energy and short wavelength femtosecond (fs) EUV laser developed in the NSF sponsored EUV ERC at The University of Colorado. If successful, the photo-thermal imaging system developed in this project which has a temporal resolution of 10fs and a sub-10nm spatial resolution will serve as a characterization tool for studying the heat generation and transport in novel nanostructured materials and devices. Such an enabling platform will facilitate the design for future generations of nanoscale materials and devices. Due to the limited access to high energy EUV light sources, very little knowledge on EUV has been available to the heat transfer community. The collaboration enabled in this project will help to inform the thermal science community to recent progress on EUV light sources through dissemination of results. The collaboration will in addition help to train several young graduate and undergraduate research assistants to address thermal challenges in EUV lithography.
