Events Calendar

Munushian Visiting Seminar Series

Speaker: Dr. Grant Willson, Rashid Engineering Regent Chair, UT Austin

Talk Title: Polymers for High Resolution Imaging Applications

Series: Munushian Seminar Series

Abstract: There has been a continuing and nearly frantic effort on the part of the microelectronics manufacturers over the past
several decades to make smaller and smaller devices. Companies that cannot keep pace with these advances quickly disappear
from the market place and sadly many with famous names like Siemens, Motorola and Sony have fallen by the wayside.
Photolithography, the process that has enabled the production of all of today's microelectronic devices has now reached physical
limits. Efforts to push that technology to provide still higher resolution by the historical paths of exposure wave length reduction,
increasing the numerical aperture of the projection lens and reduction in the Raleigh constant have been abandoned. Is this the
end? Can device scaling continue??
Various incredibly clever tricks based on chemical engineering principles have been devised that extend the resolution limits of
photolithography, some of which are already in use in full scale manufacturing. One promising approach for future generations
of devices is based on the "directed self-assembly" of block co-polymers. We have worked to design block co-polymers that are
optimized for this application. Doing so requires incorporation of blocks with very high interaction parameters (X) and for some
applications, incorporation of silicon into one of the blocks. Polymers of this sort form very small structures. We have now
demonstrated well resolved 50 Angstrom wide lines and spaces. Aligning the structures and orienting them in a way that is useful
for microelectronics is a challenge as is development of processes for transfer of such small patterns into substrates that are useful
for device fabrication. A progress report on these efforts will be presented.

Biography: Dr. Grant Willson is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the
University of Texas at Austin where he holds the Rashid Engineering Regent's Chair. He received both his B.S. and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.S., in organic chemistry, from San Diego State University. He joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. Prior to joining the university, Dr. Willson worked at IBM for 17 years as an IBM Fellow and Manager of the Polymer Science and Technology area at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA. He joined IBM after serving on the faculties of California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Willson is the co-inventor
of more than 40 issues U.S. patents and co-author of more than 400 publications.

Dr. Willson's research work is focused on the design and synthesis of functional organic materials with emphasis on organic materials for microelectronics. His work is supported by grants from both government and industry. His research group includes graduate and undergraduate students
enrolled in both the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Departments. He was a cofounder of Molecular Imprints, Inc., an Austin firm that employed more than 100 people and was very recently acquired by Canon.

Host: EE Electrophysics

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Marilyn Poplawski