University of Bergen

UiBs main role in the project will be to coordinate the whole project and perform lithography experiments using the new solid mask instrument to be build in cooperation with partner MB. The work will be carried out in the Nanophysics group which is in charged of the UiB Nanostructures laboratory: Equipment includes Raith E-line electron lithography device, a reactive ion etcher (790+) from Plasmatherm and an electron beam evaporator (BJD 2000) from Themescal. The critical steps are performed in an ISO 5 classified clean room from MCRT, which also spin-coating equipement, ellipsometry etc. as well as a fumehood for chemistry, which enable us to prepare resist on-site following UoB formulation.. The laboratory also include optical characterisation equipment (stereo microscope and optical microscope) as well as atomic force microscopy. Last but not least, the laboratory has a unique neutral helium atom scattering instrument Magie, which will be used to characterize the patterns imprinted in resist using diffraction. The neutral helium beam is created using supersonic expansion. Neutral helium atom scattering is one of the most surface sensitive characterisation techniques existing, because the beam scatters off the surface electron density distribution and does not penetrate into the bulk. Futhermore the energy of the beam is very low (less than 0.1 eV) and the beam is neutral. This means that fragile, insulating materials can be investigated with high precision, i.e. nano-size structures in self assemble monolayer resist. Helium atom scattering is not a commercially available technique, only about 10 instruments are currently running world-wide. The UiB instrument (originally built at the Max. Planck Institute in Goettingen) has the highest angular resolution of all, enabling periodic structures up to micron pitch to be resolved