ECS-0229087 CAREER: Directed Assembly of Nanoparticles; A Tool to Enable the Fabrication of Nanoparticle Based Devices

Ideas

Highlighted on the cover page of Advanced Materials Magazine, a newly invented Nanoxerographic printing technique at the University of Minnesota could enable the parallel fabrication of computer chips and circuits that use nanoparticles as building blocks. "Nanoscale photocopies" as released by Nature Publishing Group "could be useful for fabricating nanostructures such as quantum-dot arrays or circuits". The NSF awarded a career a ward to Prof. Heiko O. Jacobs to develop this area. Scientist from different disciplines benefit from the integrative approach of education and research in nanoscience and engineering that is supported by this program. The goal of the research team is to develop a parallel tool to position nanoparticle building blocks onto surfaces. The tool is based on directed self-assembly; it uses a patterned surface with areas (receptors) that interact with nanoparticle-based device components. The first "Nanoxerographic" printer developed by the team achieved 2 orders of magnitude higher resolution than traditional xerographic printing. To enable the direct printing of nanoparticle-based devices, the team will have to push this world record by another order of magnitude.