Christopher Ober, professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), has been awarded a $1.3 million, four-year grant by the National Science Foundation to produce and study polymer microphotonics. Ober believes the research has the potential to revolutionize the way all routine lithographic nanopatterning is carried out. He also believes such research could open up new strategies for integrating soft materials like polymers onto a silicon platform, such as a chip.
The researcher, who also is director of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was awarded the funding under the agency's Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team program. Other Cornell members of his team are two researchers, like Ober, notable for their ability to synthesize unique polymers: Geoffrey Coates, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and Uli Wiesner, associate professor of materials science and engineering. Also on the team, for his characterization expertise, is Sol Gruner, professor of physics and director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source.
Non-Cornell research team members are Edwin Thomas of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nitash Balsara of the University of California-Berkeley, both experts in the study and control of block copolymer microstructures. Industrial partners in the research are Rohm & Haas, for research in lithography, and Wright Materials Lab, for the optical behavior of materials.
The team will create block copolymer electro-optical structures, both at the two-dimensional and three-dimensional levels, containing elements on length scales ranging from the molecular (measured in nanometers, or the width of three silicon atoms) to the macroscopic (measured in millimeters). Polymer microphotonics permits the production of precision optical devices or elements using low-cost materials and simple processing steps.
The patterning of block copolymers, Ober says, offers remarkable possibilities for size control on much smaller length scales than currently possible, and with intricate geometries and functions not realizable with conventional lithography alone.