Directed self-assembly of performance materials

Speaker:Prof. Paul Nealey(University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory)

Time and Date: 10:00-11:00 , Apr. 14, 2017

Place: Room B-213, Microelectronics Building, Handan Campus

 

 

Abstract

Directed self-assembly is arguably the most promising strategy for high-volume cost-effective manufacturing at the nanoscale. Over the past decades, manufacturing techniques have been developed with such remarkable efficiency that it is now possible to engineer complex systems of heterogeneous materials at the scale of a few tens of nanometers. Further evolution of these techniques, however, is faced with difficult challenges not only in feasibility of implementation at scales of 10 nm and below, but also in prohibitively high capital equipment costs. Materials that self-assemble, on the other hand, spontaneously form nanostructures down to length scales at the molecular scale, but the micrometer areas or volumes over which the materials self-assemble with adequate perfection in structure is incommensurate with the macroscopic dimensions of devices and systems of devices of industrial relevance. Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) refers to the integration of self-assembling materials with traditional manufacturing processes. The key concept of DSA is to take advantage of the self-assembling properties of materials and at the same time meet the constraints of manufacturing. Put another way, DSA enables current manufacturing process capabilities to be enhanced and augmented at drastically reduced cost. Here I will discuss the use of lithographically-defined chemically patterned surfaces to direct the assembly of block copolymer films for semiconductor manufacturing, liquid crystal based systems for optoelectronics, and nanoparticles for applications in nanophotonics. In addition, I will highlight how DSA of these systems enables new strategies and techniques for characterization and optimization of both materials and processing conditions.

 

 

Biography

Paul F. Nealey is currently the Brady W. Dougan Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the new Institute for Molecular Engineering of the University of Chicago, and a Senior Scientist at Argonne National laboratory. His research interests include nanofabrication techniques based on advanced lithography and directed self-assembly, dimension dependent material properties of nanoscopic macromolecular systems, and quantitative three-dimensional characterization of the structure of soft materials. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and has received the National Science Foundation Career Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Arthur K. Doolittle Award from the American Chemical Society, the 2015 Intel Outstanding Researcher Award in Patterning, and the 2016 Semiconductor Industry Association—Semiconductor Research Corporation University Researcher Award. He was also the Founding Director of the National Science Foundation-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center in Templated Synthesis and Assembly at the Nanoscale.