The integration of piezoelectric and electrostrictive materials into micromachined Si devices is viewed as an important technological milestone for further development of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS). Recently, it was demonstrated that gadolinium-doped ceria (CGO) exhibits very large electrostriction effect, which results in large electrostrictive strains and high energy densities under very low frequencies (0.01 – 1 Hz). Lead-free CGO is chemically inert with respect to Si, making it an attractive candidate for implementation in MEMS actuators. However, the integration of CGO into MEMS devices is challenging due problems associated with using conventional patterning techniques involving lithography and etching.

In this work, we have successfully created functional double-clamped beam micro-actuators made of CGO films confined between the top and bottom Al/Ti electrodes. The stack containing the electrodes and the ≈ 2 µm-thick CGO film was first blanket-deposited on top of the Si wafer. Cavities were then deep reactive ion etched (DRIE) in the wafer leading to forming of the free-standing rectangular membranes, 1.5 mm × 0.5 mm in size. Finally, ≈ 1.2 mm long and ≈ 100 µm wide the double-clamped beams were cut from the membranes using a femtosecond (fs) laser, demonstrating an unharmful technique for CGO patterning. Laser pulse energies, overlaps and number of line passes were varied during the experiments, to achieve successful cuts through the suspended layer by a clean ablation process. The optimized process conditions were found at a fluence of ~0.3 J/cm² for a pulse width of 270 fs, where minimal damage and accurate processing was achieved with minimized heat-affected zones.

Resistivity measurements between the top and the bottom electrodes before and after fs laser cutting revealed that the cutting has no influence on the electric parameters of the device and no electrical shorts are introduced by the laser processing. Vertical displacement measurements under bipolar AC voltage (up to 10 V), at the frequency range of 0.03 – 2 Hz, demonstrated the functionality of the micro-actuator. A displacement of ≈ 45 nm at the voltage of 10 V at 50 mHz was achieved. The actuator didn’t show any mechanical or electrical degradation after continuous operation. Our data confirm that fs laser cutting is a useful technique for processing CGO films. The developed techniques may be expanded to other materials used for fabrication of MEMS devices, enabling fast, high yield and high-quality patterning of materials that are challenging to pattern using conventional etching-based methods.

*Three first authors contributed equally to this abstract.

The initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) process is an all-dry, vacuum process used to deposit a wide variety of functional polymers. Typically, the monomer and initiator radicals are introduced simultaneously at process conditions leading to undersaturation of monomer vapors. In this work we report a sequential vapor phase polymerization method in which monomer droplets were first condensed onto a layer of silicone oil and subsequently polymerized via a free radical mechanism to fabricate polymer particles. The viscosity of the silicone oil was systematically varied from 100 cSt through 100,000 cSt. A heterogeneous particle size distribution was produced at low viscosities of silicone oil where the smaller particles were formed by the cloaking and engulfment of monomer droplets nucleated at the vapor-liquid interface and the larger particles were formed by coalescence inside the liquid. Coalescence could be inhibited by increasing the viscosity of the silicone oil leading to a decreased average radius and a narrower size distribution of the polymer particles. A transition to polymer film formation was observed for the 100,000 cSt silicone oil substrates. We studied the polymerization of two different monomers, 4-vinyl pyridine and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, since these polymers have a variety of useful properties such as pH-responsiveness and biocompatibility. Our process enables fabrication of functional particles with average diameters ranging from 100 nm – 500 nm with fast reaction times (≈ 15 min). The advantages of our method for the fabrication of polymer particles are that it does not require surfactants or organic solvents and features short reaction times compared to conventional polymer particle synthesis methods such as emulsion polymerization.

Biology relies on self-assembly to form complex, highly-functional structures, inspiring the search for synthetic systems capable of forming similarly complex structures. Such systems typically operate under diffusion-limited, near-equilibrium conditions, making the problem even more challenging. Multi-functional, molecularly-addressable nanostructures of arbitrary shape can be built using DNA-mediated self-assembly. While this is a powerful method, and recent developments in DNA nanostructure fabrication have expanded the available design space, fabrication based on DNA alone can suffer from low yields and is hampered by the need to trade off size and mechanical rigidity.[1,2]

We have been working to both understand the factors that limit the yield of self-assembled structures, and to devise approaches to overcome them. As the number of discrete components used to assemble a structure increases, yield decreases exponentially. We circumvent this limit, by using a two-stage, hierarchical self-assembly process, which allows us to create large structures with high yield.[3] Our process employs a small number of discrete, sequence-specific elements to shape the structure at the nanoscale and define the large-scale geometry. A generic building block – a DNA binding protein, RecA – rigidifies the structure without requiring any unnecessary information to be added to the system.

Blending sequence-specific and structure-specific elements enables us to expand the self-assembly toolbox and make micrometer-scale, rigid, molecularly-addressable structures. More generally, our results indicate that the scale of finite-size self-assembling systems can be increased by minimizing the number of unique components and instead relying on generic components to construct a framework that supports the functional units.

Using DNA origami as a bottom up nanofabrication technique, gold nanowires are formed via directed assembly of gold nanorod seeds and connected by electroless plating. This metal deposition process results in wires with low conductivities compared to bulk gold. Junctions between plated seeds are likely the cause of this low conductivity. Annealing of the nanowires could potentially improve the conductance, however, nanowire annealing at low temperatures (200° C) results in wires coalescing into beads. A polymer encapsulation layer was deposited to maintain overall nanowire shape during annealing. The polymer templated anneal resulted in a resistance reduction, in some cases, to below 1000 ohms. Resistance measurements were performed using a four point resistance configuration. Electrical contacts to the randomly oriented 400 nm long wires were made by electron beam induced deposition. Nanowire morphology was measured before and after annealing by scanning electron and high resolution transmission electron microscopy.

DSA of block copolymer films on chemically nanopatterned surfaces is an emerging technology that is well-positioned for commercialization in nanolithography and nanomanufacturing. DSA of (PS-b-PMMA) films on lithographically defined chemically nanopatterned surfaces is one focus of our activities in which the main research objectives revolve around understanding the fundamental thermodynamics and kinetics that governs assembly, and therefore patterning properties such as 3D structure, perfection, and processing latitude. A second focus is to use the physical and chemical principles that we have elucidated for DSA of PS-b-PMMA towards the development of block copolymer systems capable of self-assembling into the sub 10 nm regime and continuing to meet the stringent constraints of manufacturing. The research is enabled by the recent development of techniques to combine metrology tools (TEM tomography, GISAXS, RSoXS, high-speed APF), theoretically informed course grained models, and evolutionary algorithms to quantitatively determine and predict the independent process and material parameters that result in different 3D structures of assembled domains.

Mesoporous nanowires have gained huge attention due to their applications in energy and sensing. The high surface area along with the quantum confinement effect lead to improved performance of the electrochemical devices during energy conversion and storage. 3D structure or nanowire network improves the reaction site surface area even further along all the three dimensions, enhancing both light and heat absorption. There is also a huge demand for inexpensive, non-lithographic methods to fabricate 3D network of nanowires, which are also mesoporous, with better control of both dimensions and porosity, over a large surface area. They can be very useful in some broad range applications such as solar energy conversion, energy storage, water harvesting, environmental control, bio-sensing, and thermoelectrics.

To address the problem, we report a simple and inexpensive method of fabricating 3D mesoporous Si nanowire network by metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch). Degenerately doped p-type silicon or p+ silicon wafer (0.001 ~0.005 Ω∙cm) was coated with about 22 nm silver film at 350 °C for 5~6 hours in a vacuum furnace (pressure < 3×10 ^-7 Torr). Scattered silver particles with different sizes were formed as a result of the dewetting process. Then we deposited 10~11 nm of noble metal (Au) at 0.5 Å/s rate, followed by silver lift-off to obtain an Au mesh as an etching mask. The mixture of a chemical solution of HF: H₂O₂: Ethanol = 30:1:1 is used as a chemical etchant under room temperature. The time of immersion of the silicon wafer in the etchant effects the aspect ratio of the silicon nanowire array. After MachEtch, the Au is removed by immersing the sample in the aqua regia solution. The ratio of the chemicals in the etchant will affect the pore size. The aspect ratio of the silicon nanowire network can be controlled by the etching rate. The etching rate was roughly one μm/min. The 3D network is formed as the length of the 1D silicon nanowires (50 nm -100 nm) was varied, followed by critical point drying to carefully control the uniformity of 3D silicon nanowire network on the entire surface area of the 6-inch silicon wafer.

Analysis of the 3D mesoporous silicon nanowire network was conducted using Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM), and the top view image confirmed the 3D network of silicon nanowires. The pore sizing (2-50 nm) along with the crystallinity confirmed from the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images with the diffraction patterns.

A simple, scalable, and reproducible nanopatterning method to create close-packed (moth-eye like) patterns of conical nano- and microscale features on InGaN/GaN LED surfaces, and on the backside outcoupling surface of LED devices, is presented. Colloidal lithography via Langmuir-Blodgett dip-coating using silica masks (d = 170–2530 nm) and Cl₂/N₂-based plasma etching produced features with aspect ratios of 3:1 on devices grown on semipolar (20-21) GaN substrates. The resulting InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) structures were optically pumped at 266/405 nm, and light extraction enhancement was quantified using angle-resolved photoluminescence (PL). A 4.8-fold overall enhancement in light extraction (9-fold at normal incidence) relative to a flat outcoupling surface was achieved using a feature pitch of 2530 nm. Extraction enhancement occurs due to the graded-index (GRIN) effect and breaking of the TIR condition via increased diffuse scattering and diffractive effects, the importance of which evolves with moth-eye feature size. PL results also demonstrate that colloidal roughening, which has greater geometric tunability and works on any GaN orientation, is equivalent to current, c-plane only photoelectrochemical (PEC) roughening methods. Patterning the outcoupling backside of a semipolar device, rather than the topside, is also a technologically feasible approach to fabricate electrically pumped devices because it avoids issues associated with making large area (topside) p-contacts, etching close to or into the active emitter region (destroying the MQWs), or disrupting guided modes in thin-film LEDs layers on sapphire. Because of its simplicity, range of optical control, and wide substrate compatibility, the colloidal lithography technique is a promising alternative to existing commercial processes and a future pathway for enhanced extraction engineering in free-standing polar, nonpolar, and semipolar III-nitride LEDs.