NU 2010-046 Inventors Mark Huntington Min Hyung Lee Teri Odom* Wei Zhou Abstract Molding at the nanoscale has driven the production of high-density optical and magnetic storage media, organic light-emitting diodes, polymer photovoltaic cells, and field-effect transistors. While rigid molds may be used to imprint soft and semi-hard materials for these applications, they are quite expensive to fabricate and brittle at nanoscale dimensions. Additionally, current molding methods require the use of a different master for each pattern that is desired, leading to significantly higher costs and increased down-time. To address this, researchers at Northwestern University have developed an all-moldable, bench-top soft nanofabrication platform that can generate nanoscale patterns with programmable densities and fill factors from a single master. This new method, Solvent-Assisted Nanoscale Embossing (SANE), combines the strengths of serial fabrication techniques with those of parallel ones, in turn enabling unprecedented opportunities to manipulate the properties of nanoscale materials. Applications
Advantages
Publication M.H. Lee, M.D. Huntington, W. Zhou, J.-C. Yang, T.W. Odom (2011) Programmable Soft Lithography: Solvent-assisted Nanoscale Embossing. Nano Letters. 11, 311. IP Status Issued US Patent No. 9,168, 679