Illustration of the step-by-step process of photolithography.
Credit: wikipedia commons
In the Lilliputian world of nanofabrication, where billions of microscopic circuit elements are sculpted or imprinted on a fingernail-sized silicon chip, precision is paramount and access to the best fabrication tools a necessity.
Since 2007, scientists and engineers from academia and industry have used the state-of-the-art tools at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NanoFab in Gaithersburg, MD, to build such devices as computer microchips, miniature lasers, biosensors the size of a grain of sand, and tiny neural probes that mimic the electrical activity of the human nervous system.
Although pandemic safety restrictions during the past three years did not allow researchers outside of NIST to work in the NanoFab, many contacted the NIST facility to manufacture devices for them. On May 15, the NanoFab will be welcoming back external users. Highlighted below are just a few of the more than 100 precision tools the NanoFab has to offer; most of them reside inside the facility’s 1,800 square-meter clean room, which features 12 bays of instruments.
Nanofabrication is generally divided into four categories—lithography, etching, deposition, and nanocharacterization. “The NIST NanoFab offers a complete toolset in all these areas,” said NanoFab manager Rob Ilic.
Lithography
Lithography uses beams of light, ions, or electrons to create patterns on a silicon wafer. The process involves several steps. Before a complex nanoscale pattern can be fabricated, a wafer is typically coated with a soft, thin layer of light-sensitive or electron-sensitive material known as a resist.
The NanoFab’s automated liquid resist coater applies coatings by either spraying the material o ..
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