CNST Researchers Win Best Nanolithography Poster Award at International Conference on Micro Nano Engineering

CNST researchers were recognized for the best poster presentation on nanolithography on October 1, 2009 at the 35th International Conference on Micro Nano Engineering, in Ghent, Belgium. The CNST presentation, "A Dry-on, Dry-off, Long Wavelength Photoresist for NanoPlasmonic Field Metrology and Lithography," was coauthored by CNST's Peter Carmichael and J. Alexander Liddle and two collaborators from the University of Texas (UT), Jeffrey Strahan and Professor C. Grant Willson, the Rashid Engineering Regent Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering. The poster was selected as the best of 125 entries in the nanolithography category. The conference focused on micro- and nano-fabrication and manufacturing using lithography and other nano-patterning related approaches, and brought together engineers and scientists from all over the world to discuss recent progress and future trends in the fabrication, manufacturing and application of micro-and nano-structures and devices. The winning CNST poster presentation described a new approach to measuring visible light emission from nanostructures using novel dry-deposited, dry-developed photoresists that undergo a dramatic change in sublimation temperature on exposure. The materials are sensitive across most of the visible spectrum. Optical nanostructures based on propagation of surface plasmons are being developed for a variety of important applications in telecommunications and future electronics. However, measuring the electromagnetic field distributions at the nanoscale is a significant challenge. The CNST and UT researchers synthesized and investigated a series of small molecules that can be gently evaporated to form thin films over nanoplasmonic structures, and created the first images obtained from patterning this material with visible light.