MRI: Acquisition of an Electron-Beam Lithography Tool for Research, Education and Training

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of a state-of-the-art Electron-Beam Lithography (EBL) tool to meet the nanoscale research and teaching needs of the University of Pennsylvania and its academic and industrial neighbors in the Mid-Atlantic region. The EBL instrument enables a wide range of materials and devices to be patterned on the scale of tens of nanometers.

The capabilities of this advanced instrument are central to advancing research at the forefront of diverse science and engineering disciplines, including the fundamental exploration of the behavior of charge, spin, light, heat, and motion with applications in photonics and electronics, quantum computation and communication, wearable and implantable health monitoring, micro- and macro-scale energy technologies, and chemo-/bio- and motion sensing. Participating faculty members use the EBL system in educational and outreach activities to broaden participation from underrepresented groups in science and engineering.

Undergraduate and graduate students in the engineering and science disciplines will gain valuable research experience and practical knowledge in nanofabrication techniques. The instrument is housed in the Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility, a multi-user research and training facility within the Singh Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania and home to the Mid-Atlantic Nanotechnology Hub (MANTH), an NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) site.

The EBL system is equipped with a dynamic clock for multipass exposure with high-fidelity programmable writing order control, which enables high-throughput, high placement accuracy, high-dose resolution accuracy to pattern structures with nanometer-scale features and desired complexity. The instrument is essential to developing innovative methods to structure materials into architectures for a broad range of topics: photonic and plasmonic light emitters, topological photonic and quantum logical gates, and integrated photonics for high capacity information transmission and processing; quantum materials with exotic band structures for dynamically tunable electronic, optoelectronic, and sensing devices; oxide and halide perovskites with intriguing ferro-, piezo-, and pyro-electricity and the manipulation of their nanoscale interfaces for novel structure and physical properties; large-scale ultralow weight, robust mechanical metamaterials; and 2D to 3D foldable structures of interest for micro- and nano-scale robots, resonators, and sensors.

This high-impact research has applications that span computing, communication, health, food-energy-water security, national security, to human-machine interfaces.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.