MechE Colloquium: 30 years of thermo-mechanical nanoengineering using heated AFM tips
Event details
| Date | 23.03.2021 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Jürgen Brugger, Microsystems Laboratory (LMIS1), EPFL School of Engineering (STI), Institute of Microengineering (IMT) |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
Soon after the first publication of the atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1985 attempts were made to extend the surface probing method beyond microscopy, in particular towards patterning. One of the early variants for this purpose operated a heated nano-tip to perform thermally induced phase changes of materials. The unique combination of localized heating (30 nm scale, ~ 500 deg C) and, due to the small thermal masses involved, extremely fast heating/cooling cycles (10E-6 s) has led to the development of probe-based data storage microsystems, which however has been discontinued meanwhile. Nonetheless, nano-tips were further perfected as nanotools to locally induce a phase change in materials for a wide range of exploratory studies. Today, thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) has matured into turn-key systems for nano-lithography, that can be compared to some extend to electron beam lithography, but without the need for charged particles. The full grasp of potential applications in R&D and production is still growing as the technique is still emerging.
In this talk, I will give first some background how heated AFM probes were initially designed and fabricated that led to today’s advanced thermo-mechanical probe design of micro-cantilever and nano-tips. I will review the main achievements up to date [1] and then present recent results on t-SPL on 2D materials [2, 3], and will conclude with some outlook on further challenges in hot-tip nanoengineering.
References:
[1] Thermal scanning probe lithography—A review; ST Howell et al. - Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2020
[2] Thermomechanical Nanocutting of 2D Materials; X Liu et al. - Advanced Materials, 2020
[3] Thermomechanical Nanostraining of Two-Dimensional Materials; X Liu et al. - Nano letters, 2020
Bio:
Prof. Jürgen Brugger is a Professor of Microengineering and co-affiliated to Materials Science. Before joining EPFL, he was at the MESA+ Research Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Master in Physical-Electronics and a PhD degree from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. Research in his laboratory focuses on various aspects of MEMS and Nanotechnology. In their research, key competences are in micro/nanofabrication, additive micro-manufacturing, new materials for MEMS, increasingly for biomedical applications. Together with his students and colleagues, they published over 200 peer-refereed papers and he had the pleasure to supervise over 20 PhD students. Former students and postdocs have been successful in receiving awards and starting their own scientific careers. He is honored for the appointment in 2016 as Fellow of the IEEE “For contributions to micro and nano manufacturing technology”. In 2017, his lab was awarded an ERC AdvG in the field of advanced micro-manufacturing.
Soon after the first publication of the atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1985 attempts were made to extend the surface probing method beyond microscopy, in particular towards patterning. One of the early variants for this purpose operated a heated nano-tip to perform thermally induced phase changes of materials. The unique combination of localized heating (30 nm scale, ~ 500 deg C) and, due to the small thermal masses involved, extremely fast heating/cooling cycles (10E-6 s) has led to the development of probe-based data storage microsystems, which however has been discontinued meanwhile. Nonetheless, nano-tips were further perfected as nanotools to locally induce a phase change in materials for a wide range of exploratory studies. Today, thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) has matured into turn-key systems for nano-lithography, that can be compared to some extend to electron beam lithography, but without the need for charged particles. The full grasp of potential applications in R&D and production is still growing as the technique is still emerging.
In this talk, I will give first some background how heated AFM probes were initially designed and fabricated that led to today’s advanced thermo-mechanical probe design of micro-cantilever and nano-tips. I will review the main achievements up to date [1] and then present recent results on t-SPL on 2D materials [2, 3], and will conclude with some outlook on further challenges in hot-tip nanoengineering.
References:
[1] Thermal scanning probe lithography—A review; ST Howell et al. - Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2020
[2] Thermomechanical Nanocutting of 2D Materials; X Liu et al. - Advanced Materials, 2020
[3] Thermomechanical Nanostraining of Two-Dimensional Materials; X Liu et al. - Nano letters, 2020
Bio:
Prof. Jürgen Brugger is a Professor of Microengineering and co-affiliated to Materials Science. Before joining EPFL, he was at the MESA+ Research Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Master in Physical-Electronics and a PhD degree from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. Research in his laboratory focuses on various aspects of MEMS and Nanotechnology. In their research, key competences are in micro/nanofabrication, additive micro-manufacturing, new materials for MEMS, increasingly for biomedical applications. Together with his students and colleagues, they published over 200 peer-refereed papers and he had the pleasure to supervise over 20 PhD students. Former students and postdocs have been successful in receiving awards and starting their own scientific careers. He is honored for the appointment in 2016 as Fellow of the IEEE “For contributions to micro and nano manufacturing technology”. In 2017, his lab was awarded an ERC AdvG in the field of advanced micro-manufacturing.
Practical information
- General public
- Free