Self assembly is the spontaneous organization of individual elements into regular patterns. Examples in nature range from snowflakes to sea shells to human beings. Under suitable conditions, certain materials will self organize into nanometer-scale patterns useful for microelectronics applications, evoking the prospect that critical IC elements – or perhaps one day entire circuits – could be made to “assemble themselves.” For integration in microelectronics, it is critical that the self assembling materials be compatible with the existing infrastructure of silicon manufacturing.
We are fascinated by the beauty and simplicity of self assembling materials and the promise they hold for enabling advances in semiconductor technology. Our work has focused on identifying and demonstrating key applications of self assembly. The diblock copolymer material system is particularly attractive because the polymer constituents – like photoresist materials used in conventional lithography – can act as sacrificial templates for patterning IC elements. Phase separation of the polymer blocks results in formation of ordered patterns with intrinsic molecular-scale dimensions (~10nm) and uniformity determined by the polymer molecular weight distribution. We have integrated these materials as high resolution thin film resists on 200mm diameter silicon wafers and developed etching capabilities for high fidelity transfer of polymer patterns into underlying films for device applications.
Last updated 24 Aug 2005