This Engineering Research Equipment Grant will be used by the Division of Engineering and the Center for Advanced Materials Research at Brown University to purchase components, instrumentation, and software in order to convert an existing field- emission scanning electron microscope for use as a direct-write electron-beam lithography tool. The e-beam lithographic capability will support several investigators pursuing individual research projects that represent a broad spectrum of materials, devices, physics, and technology, including fundamental electronic, magnetic, and optoelectronic properties of lower dimensional systems, II-VI and III-V semiconductor heterostructures and devices, ultra-fine magnetic particles, mesoscopic normal-metal superconductor structures, and Moire microscopy of layered microelectronic structures. The conversion project entails installation of beam-blanking hardware in the electron optical column of the microscope, enhancement of the microscope sample stage, construction of a Faraday cup sensor, and configuring the computer and controls for pattern generation and writing. Direct writing of feature sizes at and below 1000 A will be realized. By making use of existing electron optics, this project will provide a significant research capability to a multidisciplinary group in a timely and cost-effective fashion. Specific technological advances that are expected to accrue from the application of this resource include the development of coherent electron transistors, high-density magnetic recording media, optimized blue- green diode lasers, and a versatile materials testing and failure analysis system for microelectronics. These new technologies will emerge from ongoing substantive and comprehensive investigations of the various underlying physical phenomena of quantum confinement and transport, exciton-phonon interaction, and microstructural mechanics.
