The applicants propose the acquisition of a state-of-the-art, reactive ion etching, inductively coupled plasma (RIE/ICP) system to develop the nanofabrication capabilities at Washington University (WU), which will be extended to researchers in the St. Louis metropolitan area and elsewhere. The capability for high-spatial resolution, site-specific fabrication/modification of nanostructures using electron-beam lithography (eBL) and RIE/ICP is essential for cutting-edge research in integrated nanostructured materials and devices. RIE/ICP provides dry-etch processing that is standard in nanofabrication design work, and allows the creation of sophisticated, three-dimensional, functional devices with nanometer-scale features.
