Nanorobotic Manipulation Inside a TEM for In-situ Nanodevice Prototyping and Characterization

Description

Nanorobotic manipulation based on transmission/scanning electron microscope (TEM/SEM) has been developed into a versatile tool for both fundamental research and applications of nanomaterials, structures, and simple devices. The objective of this project is to investigate advanced-device-level nanorobotic manipulation based prototyping and characterization inside a TEM with the assistance of chips prepared with SEM-based manipulation and assembly, focused-ion beam/electron-beam-induced deposition (FIB/EBID)-based deductive/additive fabrication, and conventional nanofabrication processes. Aiming at developing an advanced manipulation platform based on a TEM with chips and lasers for electromechanical and opto-electromechanical nanodevices, the following three tasks are planned: (1) Modeling and visual servo control of the nanomanipulator will be performed with a target of automatizing the precision processes. (2) Design, fabrication, calibration, and resolution transferring of a high-precision small-range cantilever-type position sensor to bridge the TEM and SEM/FIB with an objective to improve the positioning accuracy of the SEM-based manipulators beyond the imaging resolution of the SEM. (3) Nanorobotic manipulation and FIB installed with an SEM for prototyping of TEM-adaptable chips. This is to show how the SEM-based manipulators can be used for prototyping relative more complex devices than TEM-based ones can. Our effort leads a trend in the merging of TEM and SEM platforms by combining the extremely high resolution of the TEM and the much higher complexity of SEM-based manipulation. The combination has been bridged by common samples/chips at the current stage but with the potential of exchangeable manipulators. The proposed research will enable new technologies for the prototyping, design, modeling, simulation, fabrication, assembly, and in-situ characterization of nanodevices. The calibration of the positioning resolution of a nanorobotic manipulator inside an SEM using a high-precision small-range cantilever-type position sensor pre-calibrated inside a TEM can be extended into a universal method with much broader applications; solving the common conflict of high precision and small measurable range of advanced sensors. The plasmonic position sensors are proposed for the first time with the potentials to be used with an atomic force microscope for biomedical manipulation and measurements. The success of this project will pave a new avenue of platform merging for nanorobotic manipulation by enabling such applications as in-situ prototyping and characterization for fundamental research and rapid product development of nanoscale and quantum devices such as sensors, batteries, neuro-morphing devices, and neuro/brain interfaces.