Please join us for a more in-depth dive of select nanotechnology topics, including resources and tips on how to share these ideas with your students. This series consists of 16 self-contained topics split between March-April and September-October. Though targeted for undergraduate studies, off-line discussions may include ways to adapt to a variety of academic levels. The planned schedule is listed below. Each seminar includes a two-hour discussion on Fridays beginning at noon EST, and additional materials provided through a course management system. You can attend one, some or all the topics.

Register for the Seminar at https://www.cneu.psu.edu/2021/02/17/netsseries/

Topics

March 19, 2021: Vacuum Technologies and Systems

While there are volumes of interesting material on vacuum technology, we will overview just a few of the core concepts. We will focus on the foundations of vacuum technology used in advance manufacturing and some areas of material characterization, including the definition of vacuum, defining “how much” vacuum is needed, and how concepts, such as “mean free path”, have a direct consequence on the nanoscale material deposition. Vacuum system design and vacuum pump physics/design will help lead us into a demonstration of a vacuum-based deposition tool at Normandale Community College, which is available on the RAIN network.

March 26, 2021: Deposition Series 1: Evaporation

Thermal evaporation is a technique used in the nanotechnology industry to deposit thin films of materials on substrates. In this workshop, you will learn about how thermal evaporation works and what type of materials and products involve thermal evaporation. At the end of the session, you will see a real-world example of thermal evaporation in action using a low-cost set-up that you can build in your lab and use with students.

April 9, 2021: Atomic Force Microscopy and Nanopatterning with a Scanning Probe (Scanning Probe Lithography)

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is a versatile characterization tool that allows users to acquire high-resolution images of nanoscale surface features. In addition to probing nanoscale surface topography, AFMs can be used to print nanoscale structures using additive and subtractive lithographic techniques. Specialized AFM imaging modes are often required to view nanostructures fabricated using AFM lithography. This talk will provide an overview of AFM lithographic techniques including dip pen nanolithography (DPN), nanoshaving, and electrochemical techniques. This talk will also include a description of specialized AFM imaging modes used to characterize nanostructures printed with AFM. The specialized AFM modes in this talk will include lateral force microscopy (LFM) and phase imaging. A remote access demonstration of AFM lithography and phase imaging will follow.

AFM lithography demonstration using contact probe to etch area of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) from glass substrate. After initial area has been etched, a tapping probe will be used to image an expanded area in phase mode, which will show differences in surface stiffness/softness between the PVP and the glass substrate.

April 16, 2021: Deposition Series 2: Sputtering and Nucleation of the Deposited Material

Sputtering is a fundamental Physical Vapor Deposition method that utilizes plasma. This session will focus on igniting a plasma for the benefit of a thin film deposition. Both DC and RF plasma based sputtering methods will be discussed. The physics of plasma will be elucidated by emphasizing the importance of different power supply and pressure settings using simulations. Ion bombardment and sputtering of atoms from the target materials will be interactively analyzed with the aid of simulations, as well. The resulting superiority of sputtering over evaporation will be discussed. Finally, a nucleation example will be covered by sputtering gold on a glass sample. The optical properties of the sputtered material will be studied to understand how gold atoms are sputter-coated on a substrate such as glass.

April 23, 2021: Deposition Series 3: Chemical Vapor Deposition

The foundations of Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) will be reviewed, with a focus on Low Pressure CVD (LPCVD), typical deposition system design, and the two modes of deposition. These modes will examine thin films, known as 2-dimensional nanoscale materials, and nanowires, known as 1-dimensional nanoscale materials. A lab tour with a look at a working CVD system may be included.

April 30, 2021: Deposition Series 4: Atomic Layer Deposition and Thermal Oxidation

Oxidation is a way to create a non-conducting layer on Si wafers. Engineers carefully create isolation sites to channel the electrons for conduction. Having the ultimate goal of creating a transistor gate oxide in mind, the session will start by discussing various uses of the oxides and introduce wet and dry oxidation methods. The oxidation physics and chemistry will be highlighted heuristically, and simulation methods will be offered to estimate the finalized oxide thicknesses. In contrast, ion implantation enables the engineers to assign certain areas to be more conductive. Next, the ion implantation tool will be introduced. The ion implantation mechanism will be studied by using a simulator for different dopant scenarios with different energies. Finally, atomic layer deposition as an emerging deposition method to achieve ultimate control over the thickness and quality will be covered. Atomic layer deposition of an alumina layer will be studied and the final thickness will be found out using an ellipsometer.

May 7, 2021: Wave-Particle Interaction Characterization 1: Confocal Microscopy

In this session, we will share the brief history of microscopes leading to Confocal Microscopy, which is a commonly used microscope technique in laboratories working in a range of applications including cell biology to in vitro experiments. This microscope has the capacity of imaging fluorescently labeled molecules with nanometer resolution, which can be used to measure a variety of activities and processes within the sample including cells. Furthermore, you will learn how laser scanning confocal microscopy is used in nanotechnology to image biological cells and tissue. Laser scanning confocal microscopy, often abbreviated confocal microscopy is a derivative of optical microscopy, the kind of microscope used in most biology labs. The difference is that confocal microscopes can scan at different depths and can create 3-D images. Many confocal microscopes use lasers for illumination which scan across a sample. Confocal microscopes produce high-resolution, high-contrast images for an optical microscope. You will see applications of confocal microscopes and we will explain the theory of how these nanotechnology characterization instruments work.