Fabrication of nanoscopic templates by block copolymer and supramolecular self-assembly

Abstract

The fabrication of systems having characteristic dimensions smaller than 100nm requires the ability to obtain, control, manipulate, and modify structures at the nanometer length scale, a step beyond microtechnology. It is well established that microstructured materials may be industrially prepared, e.g., by photolithography, but as the demand for smaller and smaller feature sizes always impose to lower the current state-of-the-art limits, further steps towards miniaturization have been raised in the last decade, focusing on different and more suitable strategies, which are based on both “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches. Self-assembly of building blocks is one of “bottom-up” approaches, which a considerable number of studies have been conducted on. Especially, block copolymer and supramolcules are major part of there studies for fabrication of 2D nanopetterns, due to simple control of pattern size and low-cost parallel processes. In this work, the ordered nanopatterns of metal dot arrays available for magnetic storage device, was successfully fabricated by self-assembly of block copolymer. The process route consists of only several steps, and is cost-effective by parallel processing, e.g., reactive ion etching (RIE) and electron-beam (E-beam) deposition. And more higher integration, supramolecules was used with the characteristic dimension of several nanometer scale. The nanopatterns fabricated by self-assembly of supramolecules showed the possibility for nanolithography.