Short Programs

Nanostructure Fabrication

This course is in development for 2013 or beyond. The below description should be taken as an example of content and is subject to change. If you are interested in this course, please
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Course Summary  |  Learning Objectives  |  Who Should Attend  |  Participants' Comments  | 
About the Lecturers  |  Location  |  Updates

Course Summary

This course focuses on the most important methods of microscopy and lithography: optical, electron-beam, scanning-probe, and nanoimprint. The optical microscopy discussion will focus on fundamentals, the diffraction limit, fourier optics, illumination/imaging modes, and confocal microscopy. We will then draw parallels to electron microscopy, discussing transmission, scanning-transmission, aberration-corrected electron microscopy, and scanning secondary-electron microscopy. We then discuss scanning-probe based microscopy. Approximately 1/3 of the course is occupied with a discussion of microscopy.

Lithography will be treated starting with optical lithography, again drawing close parallels with the previous discussion of microscopy. We discuss conformal-contact optical lithography, interference-based optical lithography, projection optical lithography with immersion, and using nonlinear methods to enhance optical lithography. We will then explain the methods used for metrology of stage position and alignment, and treat scanning-probe-based lithography and nanoimprint lithography. Electron lithography will be presented, including cutting-edge methods of achieving sub-10-nm resolution, and the use of focused-ion-beams will also be discussed. The students will learn many of the emerging methods for realizing high-throughput patterning by combining self-assembly (“bottom-up”) with methods of sub-10-nm-resolution top-down lithography.

We will finally discuss methods of pattern transfer such as etching and lift-off, focusing on how they can be applied to the sub-100-nm and even sub-10-nm patterning length scale. Practical issues for work in a laboratory will be discussed. A tour of the nanostructures laboratory at MIT will be arranged, highlighting the many custom-built one-of-a-kind tools used at the facility. Lectures will survey the latest research, and relate it to real-world applications. Lectures include practical demonstrations of fundamental physical principles, and present how these principles relate to the effects observed in the nanofabrication tools discussed in the class. Lectures are highly interactive, and students are expected to participate actively in class and to read the course notes (which will be distributed in advance) before class.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, the student will have developed familiarity with a range of key tools and techniques in nanostructure fabrication.

There are 5 high-level learning objectives for this course:

1. Understand the concepts of lithographic and microscopic resolution and apply this knowledge to calculate resolution limits for lithographic and imaging/inspection tools.
2. Define the concepts of contrast and a transfer function for an optical system and explain their role in both microscopy and lithography.
3. Identify the factors that establish practical resolution limits for major microscopy and lithography approaches and explain the impact of these factors.
4. Understand how processing tools are applied to transfer nanostructured patterns into other (useful) materials.
5. Analyze and evaluate proposed approaches to material processing.

Who Should Attend

Research scientists from industrial research labs and national labs. Process engineers in the semiconductor industry involved in metrology and/or lithography, or those involved in other process steps, but where knowledge of lithography/metrology may benefit their work. They should be interested in learning more about techniques for next-generation and beyond-next-generation nanostructure fabrication, for example interested in methods of nanostructure prototyping and research. Also, managers and decision-makers interested in a contextual picture of various techniques and technologies for nanostructure fabrication will benefit from the breadth of topics surveyed in the course.

Participants' Comments

Researcher, University of California Irvine
"This course is excellent for any type of professional – CEOs, faculty members of a university, engineers trying to reengineer their careers, even new engineers. High value, dense material is provided and guides perfectly to study, work, and research in nanostructure fabrication."

Visiting Student, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
“This course, together with the accompanying materials, provides a profound overview of today’s field of nanostructure technology in research and application. This course was introductory and challenging at the same time.”

President & CEO, Raith USA
“Professional education is vital for our company to deliver outstanding service to our customers who are scientists and engineers with nanofabrication interests. This is the only opportunity for our support team to get a well-rounded education in nanofabrication in a reasonable amount of time. This course will help our company empathize with our customers’ needs. All our sales and support employees will take this course so long as it is available.”

Assistant Chemical Engineer, KACST
“It was a great time attending [a course about] one of the useful methods for fabrication using the latest technology available in the research field and lectured by great experts in nanotechnology.”

About The Lecturers

Karl K. Berggren
Professor Berggren is the Emanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT. He pioneered the use of resists in atomic-beam lithograpy, and published the first demonstration of the use of optical-field nodes to avoid the diffraction limit in lithography. His group currently holds the world record for highest-resolution electron-beam-lithography with a conventional resist, and has developed a variety of novel lithographic methods ranging from nanoimprint lithography to templated self-assembly. During the regular semester, he teaches “Nanostructure Fabrication,” a graduate level course in EECS.

Henry I. Smith
Professor Smith is a faculty member in the Deptartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He is the inventor of x-ray lithography, and pioneered a variety of important developments in the field of nanostructure fabrication, including immersion lithography, optical enhancement techniques for conventional lithography, and zone-plate-array lithography. He is also co-founder of several startup companies.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We can also offer this course for groups of employees at your location. Please contact the Short Programs office for further details.

Updates

There are no updates at this time.