Fabrication and Characterization for Top-down Nano-manufacturing

Catalog description

There are two broad approaches to fabrication and manufacturing at the nano-scale. They are bottom-up and top-down nanofabrication. The two approaches are complementary, with the former having strong ties to biology and the latter having very strong ties to traditional semiconductor processing. E SC 522 focuses on top-down nanofabrication which makes use of two distinct approaches: additive processes and subtractive processes. These are studied in detail in this course by first focusing on the additive processes which deposit or grow materials. The effort then shifts to the subtractive processes which remove materials with a mixture of chemistry and physics, in techniques varying from wet chemical etching to deep ion etching. Achieving nano-scale features with top-down techniques is controllable and verifiable with today's characterization techniques. This control and verification aspect is an integral part of top-down fabrication at the nano-scale. Characterization tools commonly used in top-down nanofabrication are discussed in this course in the context of process development and manufacturing. These tools include optical microscopies, electron and ion beam microscopies, spectroscopies, and scanning probe techniques.