Fall 2006

NANOTECHNOLOGY - Nanotechnology Integration - Nanotechnology Competition - Nanotechnology Impact

THE CHIPS THAT power today’s information technology revolution begin their existence with a tiny “seed” crystal dipped into a crucible of molten silicon.

image courtesy of IBM Traditional production processes – exemplified by this IBM mask set – will soon reach physical limitations that will end five decades of progress. Nanotechnology may provide the next step in miniaturization. (300-dpi JPEG version - 951k)

Around the seed, untold numbers of silicon atoms perfectly align themselves with the seed’s crystalline structure, creating a self-assembled single-crystal ingot of silicon the diameter of a dinner plate and up to five feet long. From that ingot, wafers are cut to provide the foundations for integrated circuits used in computers, cell phones, medical equipment and a host of other modern electronic marvels.

Formation of the ingot provides an example of “bottom-up” nanotechnology in which the tiniest of silicon units – atoms – come together to create a larger object using a self-assembly process that proceeds on its own, governed by the laws of physics.

To make integrated circuits, however, the wafers must be topped by intricate patterns of transistors, insulating layers, interconnects and other structures grown using “top-down” processes. These processes create small structures from large ones through techniques that include photolithography.

illustration courtesy of Jim Meindl The new Marcus Nanotechnology Building will bring together the physical and biological sciences in a unique fusion of disciplines. (300-dpi JPEG version - 977k)

This complex fusion of “top-down” and “bottom-up” technology has produced increasingly more powerful and less expensive electronic devices at a steady pace for the past 50 years. But scientists can now see the end of the road for these advances because semiconductor feature sizes simply can’t be made much smaller with current technology.

What will replace silicon integrated circuits at the heart of technology innovation?

Jim Meindl doesn’t know exactly, but he believes it will involve the fusion of another set of top-down and bottom-up technologies – this one involving the basic mechanisms that govern living creatures.

As director of Georgia Tech’s Nanotechnology Research Center, Meindl is leading the development of an $80 million facility that will support the Institute’s vision for a new kind of technology based on the merger of biological and physical sciences at the nanometer scale.

photo by Gary Meek Professor Jim Meindl directs Georgia Tech’s Nanotechnology Research Center. He is shown here at the construction site for the $80 million Marcus Nanotechnology Building. (300-dpi JPEG version - 998k)

“Plants, animals and people are the most stunning examples of self-assembly that anyone can point to,” he notes. “I believe it is going to take another, more elegant, clever and spectacular fusion of bottom-up and top-down nanotechnology to get the breakthrough we need to move from silicon to whatever is next. That’s what we are going to try to do in this new facility.”

To accommodate that vision, the new Marcus Nanotechnology Building under construction on the northern part of the Georgia Tech campus will have 20,000 square feet of clean room space devoted to traditional nanotechnology based on the physical sciences – next to 10,000 square feet of clean room space devoted to biologically based nanotechnology.

courtesy of IBM Shown is a portion of the chip that powers IBM's Blue Gene/L supercomputer. (300-dpi JPEG version - 999k)

Construction has already begun, but realizing this vision in concrete and steel won’t be easy. Traditional microelectronics clean rooms operate under positive pressure to keep dust out, and limit humidity. Life sciences clean rooms work under negative pressure to keep microbes in.

“I’m not aware of another facility in the world that has been designed to do this integration from the beginning,” Meindl adds. “I believe we can do things with this fusion of bio nanotechnology and physical nanotechnology that will be very exciting.”

With its collaborators at Emory University and other leading institutions, Georgia Tech’s nanotechnology and nanoscience program has already demonstrated the potential for merging the disciplines. Three major research initiatives totaling more than $40 million are funding nanotechnology research to develop new ways of fighting cancer and repairing DNA damage, for example.

“In nanomedicine, we have combined a top engineering school with top medical schools, and we are now in a unique position to be able to move into nanomedicine very effectively,” notes Charles Liotta, Georgia Tech’s vice provost for research and graduate studies. “Nanotechnology and nanoscience are platform technologies that impact many other areas of science and technology. We aim to take advantage of what happens at the boundaries between these disciplines.”

The nanomedicine efforts build on a nanotechnology program already ranked among the top 25 in the United States for the dollar volume of research. A recent study ranked Georgia Tech third in the nation for the number of nanotechnology researchers that are “highly cited” in peer-reviewed publications and in the top ten for the number of first authors publishing in such journals.

Liotta sees more collaboration ahead and benefits for industrial companies, including those based in Georgia.

“No one university can do everything on its own,” he says. “Nobody has all the intellectual capital or the facilities to meet the needs of interdisciplinary research today.”

courtesy of Z.L. Wang New nanohelix structures developed at Georgia Tech could provide engineers with new building blocks for creating nanometer-scale sensors, transducers, resonators and other devices that rely on electromechanical coupling. (300-dpi JPEG version - 587k)

Liotta points to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Imperial College in the United Kingdom and the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) as examples of Georgia Tech’s collaborative approach in nanotechnology.

He expects the new 160,000-square-foot facility to serve as a magnet for industrial companies wanting to share in Georgia Tech’s vision for technology at the smallest of scales.

“We feel that this new Nanotechnology Research Building will attract industry to partner with our researchers,” Liotta explains. “We look at the new building as not the just vehicle for doing nanoscience and nanotechnology, but also as an outreach to industry so we can transfer technology developed here and jointly develop new technology.”

That collaboration has already begun. In the Joseph M. Pettit Microelectronics Research Center – currently a campus focal point for nanotechnology and nanoscience – more than two dozen industrial companies use the clean room facilities, Meindl says. Georgia Tech has made significant investments in new equipment for nanotechnology, including an electron-beam lithography tool able to produce feature sizes as small as 5 to 10 nanometers. The device was purchased with support from the Georgia Research Alliance.

photo by Rob Felt Philanthropist Bernie Marcus, left, Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, center, and University System Chancellor Erroll Davis discuss the new Marcus Nanotechnology Building at groundbreaking ceremonies held in August 2006. (300-dpi JPEG version - 953k)

Beyond industrial collaborators, the facilities are used by all five of the other Georgia Research Alliance universities, making it truly a Georgia resource. Meindl wants the same thing to happen with the new building, which will be the most advanced facility of its kind in the Southeast when it opens in mid-2008.

“This new building is going to give us a new opportunity to provide nanotechnology research services to the state in a significant way,” he says. “We really are motivated and we can do it. We have a vision and we are putting resources behind that vision.”

Such collaboration is encouraged by the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), a National Science Foundation-support organization that brings together 13 leading U.S. universities to share facilities – and facilitate collaborations with industry.

photo by Nicole Cappello Georgia Tech Professor of Physics Uzi Landman is a pioneer of using computer simulations to discover new phenomena on the nanoscale. Awards won by Landman helped rank Georgia Tech first in the South for the number of nanotechnology prizes. (300-dpi JPEG version - 902k)

Georgia Tech is a national leader in the ancillary technologies associated with integrated circuits, addressing such key issues as interconnects, cooling, power supply and packaging, Meindl notes. The institution gained that position through hard work, playing catch-up after it initially missed out on much of the technology that is so important to the world’s economy.

Today it is part of the Focus Center Research Program, supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the semiconductor industry itself. Other universities involved include Stanford, MIT, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas.

Through its Microsystems Packaging Research Center – supported by the National Science Foundation and industry partners – Georgia Tech has led efforts to further shrink electronic equipment through “system-on-package” technology that goes beyond Moore’s Law.

At the groundbreaking for the new building in August, Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough vowed that the institute will be a national leader in nanotechnology, with the new facility fueling rapid growth in Georgia Tech’s nanotechnology research.

“We had to work really hard to catch up with the microelectronics revolution,” he told attendees at the groundbreaking for the building, which was named after philanthropist and Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus. “We’re not going to miss out on this one.”