| Services |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Channels |
| Home & Family |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Leisure |
|
|
|
|
| Technology |
|
|
|
|
|
| Business |
|
|
|
|
| Science |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Site Search  |
|
|
|
|
| Free email |
|
|
|
|
 |
New technique producing small things in large quantities |
| TheAllINeed.com |
(NC&T/UH) Vincent Donnelly, Demetre Economou and Paul Ruchhoeft, all of the Cullen College of Engineering, have developed a technique that allows nanotech devices to be mass-produced, which could move the television industry away from the LCD display to the superior field emission display (FED). FEDs use a large array of carbon nanotubes – the most efficient emitters known – to create a higher resolution picture than an LCD.
The nanotech fabrication technique that can mass produce an ordered array of carbon nanotubes and make FEDs happen promises to remove some of the largest practical barriers to mass-producing nanotech devices, Economou said.
Dubbed nanopantography, the method uses standard photolithography to selectively remove parts of a thin film and etching to create arrays of ion-focusing micro-lenses – small round holes through a metal structure – on a substrate, such as a silicon wafer.
"These lenses act as focusing elements," Donnelly said. "They focus the beamlets to fabricate a hole 100 times smaller than the lens size."
A beam of ions is then directed at the substrate. When the wafer is tilted, the desired pattern is replicated simultaneously in billions of many closely spaced holes over an area, limited only by the size of the ion beam.
![]() "The nanostructures that you can form out of that focusing can be written simultaneously over the whole wafer in predetermined positions," Economou said. "Without our technique, nanotech devices can be made with electron-beam writing or with a scanning tunneling microscope. However, the throughput, or fabrication speed, is extremely slow and is not suitable for mass production or for producing nanostructures of any desired shape and material."
With the right ions and gaseous elements, the nanotech fabrication method can be used to etch a variety of materials and virtually any shape with nanosize dimensions. A standard printing technique that can create lenses measuring 100 nanometers wide could be used to draw features just one nanometer wide if combined with nanopantography.
"We expect nanopantography to become a viable method for rapid, large-scale fabrication," Donnelly said.
Economou, Donnelly and Ruchhoeft have been working on the technology for four years. UH filed the patent application in December 2006. They hope the technology can become commercially available in five to 10 years and expect it to become a viable method for large-scale production.
|
| About the Author |
©2006 All rights reserved
|
Nanotubes in living animals
|
|
| Quotes | I would like to state something about college life: Facist Europe papersattract a disproportionate number of gothic type faces.
David Randall
I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than an eternity without it. One.
Nicholas Cage, City of Angels |
| Writers | | If you are a writer and want to see your article published at Theallineed.com, just click here to submit. |
|
Schedules for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Basketball Tournaments Announced
Motivational techniques you can learn starting today