This research was received in response to the Active Nanostructures and Nanosystems initiative, NSF 06-595, category NIRT. The goal of this project is to develop a high-throughput hierarchical nano-manufacturing tool for producing components and devices with feature dimensions ranging from nanometers to centimeters. The technical approach to be used is based on a nanoscale optical antenna capable of concentrating light into a nanometer size with high efficiency, which was recently developed at Purdue. The concentrated radiation from the antenna will be used as the energy source for nano-manufacturing. For high-throughput manufacturing, an array of thousands of such antennas, each can be individually controlled but working in parallel, will be used for scaling up the manufacturing process. Since many products have features with both nanometer and larger dimensions, micrometer-size diffractive optical elements will be integrated with the proposed manufacturing tool for fabricating larger size features. The combined use of nanometer-scale antennas and micrometer-scale diffractive optical elements will further speed up manufacturing of devices with different feature dimensions. Parallel to the tool development, research will be conducted to investigate fundamentals relevant to the proposed manufacturing process, including nano-optics or near-field optics and diffractive optics. Theoretical and experimental studies of these optical devices will further improve their light concentration and light transmission efficiency, which in turn will improve the manufacturing throughput. The proposed project is also a collaboration with Seagate Technology, who is interested in using the nanoscale antenna for developing next generation data storage technologies. Researches in the last decade have shown that devices with critical dimensions below 100 nm have superior functionalities. In order to bring these new devices from laboratories to the market, drastically new, low cost, large scale manufacturing techniques are necessary. The proposed low-cost, high-throughput, hierarchical manufacturing tool will produce devices with nanoscale features that can impact many industries. The proposed research will also contribute to many fields in science and engineering, including nano-optical science and nanoscale radiation enhancement, volume diffractive optics, nanoscale optical imaging, and mechanics and dynamics in complex systems. Furthermore, being able to concentrate light into a nanometer spot with high efficiency will have significant impact on many other areas of science and technology. Combined with established methods, parallel nanoscale light sources can be used, for example, for inspection of surface defects in microelectronics, for high speed biological detection and medical screening, and for high density data storage. This project will also contribute to human resource development. It will provide graduate and undergraduate students with trainings in interdisciplinary areas and industrial experience through internships. Special efforts will be made to recruit students from under-represented groups. Research outcomes will be introduced as new modules or special topics in a number of undergraduate and graduate level courses, including undergraduate and graduate laboratory courses. The project will also be outreached to high school students through existing Purdue outreach programs. Through these efforts, this project will make significant contributions to nano-science and engineering and to the education and human resource development.
Research in past decades has led to many advanced devices having critical dimensions significantly below 100 nm. These nanoscale devices have superior functionalities, and will impact every sector in industry. In order to bring these new devices from laboratories to the market, large scale manufacturing techniques are necessary. This project was to develop a high throughput nanomanufacturing tool for producing nanoscale features. The key component in this manufacturing tool was a nanoscale optical antenna capable of concentrating light into a nanometer size domain with high efficiency. The concentrated radiation from the antenna was used for nanomanufacturing. We used an array of such antennas for scaling up the nanomanufacturing process. We have successfully developed a parallel nano-manufacturing tool using a antenna array with 20 nanoscale light sources writing nanoscale features in parallel. This manufacturing tool is much simpler and costs much less than conventional nano-fabrication tools. Conventional nano-fabrication uses electron beam or other radiation sources. The equipment involves sophisticated beam generation, steering, focusing, and vacuum systems. In contrast, our method used a laser source and commercially available optical and mechanical components, and its cost was much lower than the current nano-fabrication tools. During the course of the work, we have also (1) developed methods for fabricating and integrating optical elements called volume zone plate to produce microscale features, (2) developed and optimized methods to fabricate nanoantennas, (3) developed methods to further focus the light emitted from the nanoscale antennas, (4) developed a near field scanning optical microscope system for characterizing nanoscale antennas, (5) designed and built a nanomanufacturing system/tool, (6) developed a highly accurate metrology and positioning system that enables nanomanufacturing using nanoscale antenna array. This project has contributed to the principal fields related to optical based nanomanufacturing: (1) near field optics, in particular, nanoscale antenna design, fabrication, characterization, and utilization, (2) micro and nano manufacturing system development, (3) diffractive optics, design and fabrication of volume Fresnel zone plates (patent awarded). The project also contributed to related fields including (1) nanoscale imaging using antenna, (2) optical and optical/magnetic data storage using nano-antenna (in collaboration with Seagate and Information Storage Industry Consortium - INSIC), (3) IR imaging using antenna array (in collaboration with QmagiQ LLC), (4) highly efficient solar energy collection using surface plasmonic structures, and (5) chemical and biological sensing using plasmonic structures. The project has resulted in a total of 19 journal publications and 21 conference presentations. This project has also contributed to human resource development including providing training to nine graduate students (2 are female and 1 is Hispanic), and developing new course modules and web lectures. The project also participated in various outreach activities to introducing the nanotechnology to general public, including elementary and high school students.
