Intellectual Property Office

Non-Confidential Disclosures

"Manufacturing Method for Producing Molecular Rulers”

PSU Inv. Disc. No 2617
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Keywords:

Nanotechnology, Manufacturing, Fabrication, Electronics, Lithography

Inventors:

Jeffrey M. Catchmark

Links:

Published Patent Application
Inventor Website

Background:

Optical lithography is the prevalent method for fabricating features in electronic devices. The fabrication of advanced electronics requires a simple, reproducible process for patterning features at scales of tens of nanometers, an ongoing challenge for optical lithography. An alternative process is electron beam lithography which is capable of realizing sub-20 nm features. However, the narrow, high-energy beam can damage substrates and scans slowly, limiting the throughput of devices with ~10 nm features. Hence, there is a need for an economical method to pattern such features.

Invention description:

The disclosed invention entails a potentially high-yield manufacturing process for using molecular rulers to scale down nanostructures. The process replaces conventional lift-off processes for making discrete dielectric structures. A metal layer on a substrate is sandwiched between sacrificial dielectric layers. A side of the sandwiched structure is exposed by etching by one of several processes (e.g., optical lithography or electron beam lithography). Layers of molecules are then deposited on the exposed side to serve as the "molecular ruler", which measures how far from the sandwiched structure new metallic structures should be deposited. The sacrificial material is then removed, leaving only the new metallic structures. These features can be layered as interconnects between dielectric structures, thereby combining nanoscale interconnects with microscale integrated circuits.

Advantages:

• High-yield manufacturing for scaling down nanostructures is possible
• Features of lengths down to ~10 nm
• Connect integrated circuits
• Components of plasmonic devices
  

Contact:

Richard M. Weyer
Sr. Technology Licensing Officer
Intellectual Property Office
113 Technology Center
The Pennsylvania State Univ.
University Park, PA 16802-7000
Phone: (814) 865-6279
Fax: (814) 865-3591
E-mail:rmw4@psu.edu