Project description
Novel nanofabrication techniques will unleash the potential of 3D patterned nanomaterials
Nanoscale materials often exhibit intriguing and exotic properties not present in the same bulk materials. The explosion of nanomaterial characterisation techniques has significantly enhanced our understanding. In addition, the parallel development of nanofabrication techniques has enabled the practical realisation of numerous nanostructures and nanotechnologies. However, nanofabrication is facing physical limitations that pose a barrier to the continued downsizing of devices and practical applications that require exquisite control of nanoscale patterns and finely tuned physical properties. The EU-funded B3YOND project is developing a game-changing nanofabrication technique based on thermally assisted scanning probe lithography, and plans to use it to deliver novel artificial nanomaterials for 3D nanoelectronics and spintronics, ushering in a new era of nanotechnologies.
Objective
B3YOND proposes a radically new approach to nanofabrication, based on using sub-10 nm confined thermal reactions for patterning and manipulating the physical properties of materials with unprecedented tunability and resolution. Throughout the past decades, the progress in micro- and nano-fabrication techniques has been one of the most powerful and ubiquitous driving forces in science and technology. Nowadays, conventional approaches to nanofabrication reached the fundamental physical limits for the downscaling of devices, so that the search for groundbreaking new paradigms has become vital for enabling significant technological advancement. This project aims to go substantially beyond conventional nanofabrication approaches, through the following ambitious research objectives:
1) Demonstrate a radically new approach to nanofabrication, phase-nanoengineering, based on directly crafting at the nanoscale the physical properties of thin-film materials, by using the recently developed thermally assisted scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) technique for producing highly localized and tunable thermally-induced phase changes.
2) Develop a new class of artificial nanomaterials with unprecedented electronic transport properties, which arise from the proximity and coexistence of different structural and electronic phases, tailored at the nanoscale.
3) Realize novel monolithic three-dimensional nanoelectronic platforms for beyond-CMOS computing, by exploiting the unique capabilities of t-SPL for obtaining sub-10 nm resolution patterning in three-dimensions.
By combining, in a highly multidisciplinary approach, some of the most promising recent advances in materials science, with the tremendous potential of t-SPL, this challenging project will enable disruptive conceptual and technological breakthroughs, beyond the conventional paradigms of nanofabrication.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
20133 Milano
Italy