3 research outputs found
Ultrahigh Elastic Strain Energy Storage in Metal-Oxide-Infiltrated Patterned Hybrid Polymer Nanocomposites
Modulus of resilience,
the measure of a material’s ability
to store and release elastic strain energy, is critical for realizing
advanced mechanical actuation technologies in micro/nanoelectromechanical
systems. In general, engineering the modulus of resilience is difficult
because it requires asymmetrically increasing yield strength and Young’s
modulus against their mutual scaling behavior. This task becomes further
challenging if it needs to be carried out at the nanometer scale.
Here, we demonstrate organic–inorganic hybrid composite nanopillars
with one of the highest modulus of resilience per density by utilizing
vapor-phase aluminum oxide infiltration in lithographically patterned
negative photoresist SU-8. In situ nanomechanical measurements reveal
a metal-like high yield strength (∼500 MPa) with an unusually
low, foam-like Young’s modulus (∼7 GPa), a unique pairing
that yields ultrahigh modulus of resilience, reaching up to ∼24
MJ/m<sup>3</sup> as well as exceptional modulus of resilience per
density of ∼13.4 kJ/kg, surpassing those of most engineering
materials. The hybrid polymer nanocomposite features lightweight,
ultrahigh tunable modulus of resilience and versatile nanoscale lithographic
patternability with potential for application as nanomechanical components
which require ultrahigh mechanical resilience and strength
Aberration-Corrected Electron Beam Lithography at the One Nanometer Length Scale
Patterning materials
efficiently at the smallest
length scales is a longstanding challenge in nanotechnology. Electron-beam
lithography (EBL) is the primary method for patterning arbitrary features,
but EBL has not reliably provided sub-4 nm patterns. The few competing
techniques that have achieved this resolution are orders of magnitude
slower than EBL. In this work, we employed an aberration-corrected
scanning transmission electron microscope for lithography to achieve
unprecedented resolution. Here we show aberration-corrected EBL at
the one nanometer length scale using polyÂ(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)
and have produced both the smallest isolated feature in any conventional
resist (1.7 ± 0.5 nm) and the highest density patterns in PMMA
(10.7 nm pitch for negative-tone and 17.5 nm pitch for positive-tone
PMMA). We also demonstrate pattern transfer from the resist to semiconductor
and metallic materials at the sub-5 nm scale. These results indicate
that polymer-based nanofabrication can achieve feature sizes comparable
to the Kuhn length of PMMA and ten times smaller than its radius of
gyration. Use of aberration-corrected EBL will increase the resolution,
speed, and complexity in nanomaterial fabrication
Generation of Ensembles of Individually Resolvable Nitrogen Vacancies Using Nanometer-Scale Apertures in Ultrahigh-Aspect Ratio Planar Implantation Masks
A central challenge in developing
magnetically coupled quantum registers in diamond is the fabrication
of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers with localization below ∼20
nm to enable fast dipolar interaction compared to the NV decoherence
rate. Here, we demonstrate the targeted, high throughput formation
of NV centers using masks with a thickness of 270 nm and feature sizes
down to ∼1 nm. Super-resolution imaging resolves NVs with a
full-width maximum distribution of 26 ± 7 nm and a distribution
of NV–NV separations of 16 ± 5 nm