Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

Molecular-scale devices hold the potential for a wide range of electronic applications. One of the greatest challenges in developing these devices is to fabricate and monitor the formation of their nanometer-scale electrodes with atomic precision. We have developed an electromigration technique that employs feedback for controllably electromigrating a nano-scale electrode with atomic precision at room temperature. We have also achieved a method for in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscope imaging, and found evidence for highly crystalline electrode formation. In addition, we have scaled-up the technique to successfully fabricate large numbers of electrodes in parallel for very large-scale integrated-circuits, and identified a unique electrode geometry which enables a gate response. The high-resolution imaging also gives important new insight into the failure mechanisms of nanometer-scale interconnects. Feedback controlled electromigration provides exciting new possibilities for fabricating highly-ordered nano-scale devices and promises far reaching applications in the design and study of extremely small devices.