This program will employ nanolithography instrumentation in a range of research and education activities in the fields of physics, biology and chemistry at Boston College. More importantly, it will foster and strengthen research, training and classroom collaborations between these fields in emerging integrated science areas such as cancer detection, solar cells, artificial vision, metamaterials, and nanoscale SPM. The instrumentation will be extremely important components of integrated science at BC, expanding the capabilities of its recently-built clean room from the microscale to the nanoscale. It is comprised of two high-level SEMs, one each adapted for electron beam nanolithography and focused ion beam nanomachining. The former is a JEOL JSM-7001F field emission scanning electron microscope outfitted with Nabity nanometer pattern generation system and Oxford EDS. It has a magnificaition range of 10X to 1,000,000X, and a resolution of 1.2 nm at its maximum accelerating voltage of 30 kV. The latter is a JEOL JIB-4500 Multibeam SEM+FIB system, an LaB6-based focused ion beam/ focused electron beam instrument with a multi-gas injection system for ion- or electron-beam-assisted deposition as well as ablation. It also has a Kleindieck quad-probe insert for in situ four-probe nanomanipulation and nanoscale electrical probing, as well as a rotational tip with microgrippers for TEM lift-out and other uses. The combined instrumentation will be used by at least 11 faculty members, and their research groups, in three departments at BC. This amounts to about 50 individuals, not counting students in the two undergraduate and graduate courses (1 each) in Integrated Science being codeveloped by the PIs, and also not counting anticipated usage external users from area colleges and local companies. The instrument vendor, JEOL, has agreed to fund a nano-instrumentation post-doc for two years to help train the instrumentation user community.
Nanoscale materials such as nanowires, nanotubes, and molecular materials provide the smallest building blocks for future electronic, magnetic, and optical microsystem and nanosystem devices, having not only reduced size but often greatly improved or novel characteristics. For many such systems, intrinsic physical and biochemical properties are only now being revealed, through collaborative, ?integrated science? efforts involving physicists, chemists, biologists, physicians, and engineers. The small dimensions of nanostructures demand specialized tools for their fabrication, characterization, manipulation and actuation. Scanning electron microscopes (SEM) outfitted for electron beam lithography (EBL) and for focused ion beam (FIB) use are the most effective solutions to this need. The Focused Ion Beam system uses a narrow beam of charged atoms (ions) to either ablate or deposit material on a substrate or sample specimen, with not only nanometer-scale resolution but three-dimensional capability. FIB thus complements EBL, and together, full nanofabrication capabilities are enabled. The new instrumentation for this project will be used by faculty members and their undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs in three departments at Boston College (Physics, Chemistry and Biology), to support a growing number of funded and future research projects in integrated science areas such as nanoscale magnetic microscopy, carbon nanotube-enabled drug delivery, and a nanoengineered retinal implant visual prosthesis. Many of these projects currently make use of EBL and FIB systems at other universities on a fee basis, with less-than-satisfactory results stemming largely from inadequate and aperiodic access, lack of quality control, and contamination during transport. The instrumentation will also be used by faculty and students at local colleges, and by local commercial entities, both on a fee-basis. Undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry and biology, including women and members of minority populations, will be guided in lecture, teaching laboratory, and research laboratory settings to use the EBL and FIB systems to conduct cutting-edge nanoscience and technology experiments, via collaborative research groups and two new, cross-listed integrated science courses developed specifically around these instruments, and co-taught by the PIs from the three departments. They will be able to create, measure and manipulate micro- and nanostructures in fundamental and applied scientific research. In doing so, they will not only gain knowledge of the frontiers of science, but will also use the experience in integrated science to prepare for careers in the modern world of nanoscience, medicine and technology.
