courtesy of TU Ilmenau
courtesy of Nanoworld Services GmbH
courtesy of TU Ilmenau
courtesy of SIOS Messtechnik GmbH
courtesy of SIOS Messtechnik GmbHPRONANO - Project overview
Technology for the Production of Massively Parallel Intelligent Cantilever Probe Platforms for Nanoscale Analysis and Synthesis
Proposal/Contract no.: IP 515739-2 PRONANO
Scanning proximity probes (SPP) are uniquely powerful tools for analysis, manipulation and bottom-up synthesis: they are capable of addressing and engineering surfaces at the atomic level and are the key to unlocking the full potential of Nanotechnology.
Current SPP nanotools are limited to single probes with pitifully slow processing rates and, even at the research level, attempts at multiprobe systems have achieved only small arrays and did not find their path into commercialization. This could be a terminal limitation for the future of Nanotechnology, in particular for bottom-up manufacturing, with little prospect for economic throughputs, unless 2-dimensional massively parallel probe arrays can be realised.
Such a development would revolutionise Nanotechnology, triggering an avalanche of new products and processes in a wide range of applications including surface chemistry, materials and the life-health industries. This ground-breaking technology development is the ambitious principal aim of this proposal. Generic massively parallel intelligent cantilever-probe platforms will be produced through a number of existing and ground-breaking techniques.
In a multi-disciplinary approach a technology for fabrication and application of integrated NEMS-chips (Nano Electro Mechanical System) is developed comprising probe realization, electronics and system integration. State-of-the-art micro-fabrication techniques as ultralow energy implantation, vertical through silicon interconnections, flip-chip packaging and ultrasharp tip etching are applied for realizing high performance scanning probe arrays in a scalable layout.
Especially designed integrated cantilever control circuitry, signal multiplexing and intelligent data management allow compact, efficient and scalable electronics for driving the integrated NEMS chips and acquisition of measurement data.
By integration of cantilever array scanning probes and corresponding multi-channel cantilever control electronics into a state-of-the-art laser interferometer controlled large area scanning stage with sub-Nanometer precision a novel and absolutely unique tool for high throughput investigation of the nanocosm will be created.
To validate this novel technology, a series of demonstrations are planned where relevant SMEs will use this technology to carry out sub-10 nm metrology for high throughput manufacturing. Furthermore selected key applications and the results will be used to educate and inform in support of the development of new nanotechnology processes and products.
It is the aim of PRONANO that the new massively parallel scanning probe nanotools with application specific VLSI NEMS (Very Large Scale Integrated Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems) chips inside should empower nanotechnologists and drive the rapid development of nanoscience, leading to new nanotechnology processes and their industrial exploitation. They will secure the future of nanotechnology with economic throughputs leading to new manufacturing industries.