Lithography Center receives
state-of-the-art stepper

A state-of-the-art tool delivered to NC State on Monday (Oct. 27) will allow faculty and students at NC State and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to take a huge step forward in the fabrication of very small things.

Parts of a new lithography stepper are delivered through what used to be a window of the Engineering Graduate Research Center and into the Triangle National Lithography Center.

On Monday, NC State's Engineering Graduate Research Center (EGRC), home to the Triangle National Lithography Center (TNLC), opened its doors - and, literally, its windows - to its new lithography stepper. The tool will allow about 80 students and faculty members from both campuses, as well as industry, government and other academic users, to conduct cutting-edge nanotechnology research.

The stepper will be used to produce patterns on different substrates for use as electronic devices. Computer chips, molecular electronics devices, opto-electronics devices and other nanoscale devices are just a few of the items that can be produced with the stepper, says Dr. Carl Osburn, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State.

The stepper will also be used to support research in environmentally safe lithography, polymers and polymer processing as part of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center's "Dry Fab of the Future" research program.

The stepper has a market value of about $10 million. NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill invested about $4 million in purchase and start-up costs.

Getting the stepper, which weighs nearly 30,000 pounds, into the EGRC wasn't easy. To accommodate all the subassemblies of the laser stepper, large window panes had to be removed from the front of the EGRC and a large door installed in the wall of what will be a class 100 cleanroom photolithography facility.

A clean room is a confined area that maintains tight controls on humidity, temperature, particulate matter and contamination, says Dr. Darlene Taylor, research associate with the NSF Science and Technology Center. The class of a clean room defines the maximum number of sub-micron sized particles that can exist in 1 cubic foot of air in the clean room. For example, a class 100 cleanroom maintains less than one hundred particles that are larger than 0.5 micrometers in each cubic foot of air space.

"The TNLC will leverage analytical tools and other resources available in the existing 7,400 square-foot class 100 and 1000 clean room space of the NC State Nanofabrication Facility," Taylor says. "This should be a big attraction for future users of the facilities."

It'll take another few weeks to get the stepper operational for initial tests.

It is believed that no other institute of higher education has such a state-of-the-art tool for nanofabrication. Osburn said that gaining experience with the cutting-edge tool will give students a big advantage in the nanotechnology workforce.

Posted October 29, 2003

Return to the Bulletin homepage