Advanced Manufacturing Approaches

Self Assembly

self assembly

Layer-by-Layer Nano Self-Assembly

Advantages

  • New mechanical, electrical, optical, and catalytic properties
  • Tunable material properties
  • Biocompatibility
  • Lager surface-to-volume ratio suitable for high-performance MEMS
  • Unlimited coating cycles, controllable thickness, nanometer accuracy
  • Substrates: silicon wafers, plastics, glass, etc.
  • Assembled materials: polyions, charged nanoparticles, proteins, viruses, DNAs, etc.
  • Simple fabrication steps and mild fabrication conditions
self

“Bottom-up” self-assembly of graphene may open a new way for M/NEMS with high performance and low cost.

Selective Publications

  1. M. Li, D. Mills, T. Cui, M. McShane, IEEE Trans. Nanobioscience, 4( 2), 2005: 170.
  2. F. Hua, T. Cui, et al., Nano Letters, 18, 4(5), 2004: 823.
  3. T. Cui,  F. Hua, et al., US Patent No. 7,090,783.
  4. T. Cui, Y. Liu and M. Zhu, Appl. Phys. Lett., 87, 2005, p.183105.
  5. W. Xue, Y. Liu, and T. Cui, Appl. Phys. Lett., 89, 2006: 163512.
  6. W. Xue and T. Cui, IEEE MEMS Conference 2007.

Modified Lift-Off

lift

 

Selective Publications

  1. M. Li, D. Mills, T. Cui, M. McShane, IEEE Trans. Nanobioscience, 4( 2), 2005: 170.

Hot Embossing Process

hot

Advantages

  • Low-cost method for high Volume production
    • Raw materials are cheap
    • Manufacturing is simple (batch replication)
    • Compatible with the traditional IC processes
  • Extremely precise
    •  Replications in nm-range are possible
  • Thermal equilibrium process
    • Homogeneous, low internal stress
    • Very thin microstructures with high aspect ratios can be achieved

Selective Publications

 


Shrink Nanolithography

Shrink movable type nanolithography can produce patterns with a feature size of 20 nm or below at high throughput and low cost on wafer scale.

shrink

Selective Publications

  1. B. Zhang, M. Zhang, T. Cui, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 100,  2012: 133113.