This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a platform for photon beam enhanced and electron beam induced nanoscale processing. Focused electron beam induced processing is a nanoscale process generally capable of about 10nm resolution and 1nm has been demonstrated. However, materials deposited via focused nanoscale electron beam induced deposition (EBID) contain significant amounts of residual contamination due to insufficient by-product desorption from the precursor molecules. In addition, electron beam induced etching (EBIE) is typically limited by desorption of the resultant electron beam induced etch product, thus is prohibitively slow. This project will address these limitations by developing an instrument capable of delivering a pulsed photon beam to facilitate desorption of contaminate by-products for the EBID process, and accelerate desorption of etch products during the EBIE process. The objective is to design and construct a platform capable of precise delivery of photons over a broad spectroscopic range for nanoscale processing and simultaneous microscale imaging in standard scanning electron microscopes (SEM) or dual ion and electron beam systems. Finally, requisite pulsed electron-photon-mass transport synchronization strategies will be developed for advanced nanoscale prototyping, editing, and sample preparation.
The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the development of a new tool to enable improved rapid prototyping of nanoscale devices by offering a cost-effective solution for nanoscale synthesis compatible with widespread SEM and dual beam platforms. This will accelerate the research efforts on next generation nanoscale devices with new and/or enhanced functionality, which is expected to benefit many facets of society ranging from physical to life sciences. This project may also improve the understanding of critical photon-electron-substrate-vapor interactions which will ultimately lead to a directed assembly approach capable of depositing 3-dimensional, complex and multi-component materials with nanometer scale lateral resolution and atomic scale z-dimensional control.
This program was focused on developing and testing a laser delivery system, known as the OptoProbeTM, for use with a scanning electron or focused ion beam microscope to allow for concurrent laser processing and high-resolution optical imaging, which is not an option on existing microscopes. The Phase I of this program focused on the development of an optical access port, while this Phase II focused on bringing the product from the research and development stages to the market. Due to strategic changes as part of the integration of Omniprobe into Oxford Instruments, efforts were redirected towards hardware improvement on the laser delivery system. The primary effort of this program was to develop two models of the OptoProbeTM to be available as part of the Omniprobe, Inc. product line. The Generation 1 OptoProbeTM (FLASH) was designed to be for research and development with minimal options supplied, but with opportunity for modification (as needed by the user). The Generation 2 OptoProbeTM (ZOOM) was designed to be for industrial applications with options configured for optimal operation for a specific process and ease of use. The idea to develop both models was initiated by feedback from our beta test site at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and our goal to provide a turn-key option for laser processing on a scanning electron microscope platform for nano-manufacturing. Another outcome of this program was the process development of nano-manufacturing techniques including laser assisted electron and ion beam induced processing and pulsed laser induced dewetting for self- and directed-assembly of nanostructures. Electron and ion beam induced processing (deposition or etching) is used almost exclusively for integrated circuit and advanced lithography repair, but has also been used for many other applications in scientific research. Our developmental efforts have been focused on including a laser pulse into the existing process to heat the process area and therefore improve the rate of the process and also improve the purity through thermal annealing (for deposition). Pulsed laser induced dewetting is a process technique for self- and directed-assembly of nanostructures that uses liquid phase instabilities in thin metal films to arrange into patterns on a substrate. The major advantage of the OptoProbeTM in this work is the ability to observe the dynamics of the assembly process.
