NIST’s Program in Nanotechnology

Michael CasassaDirector, Program Office

National Institute of Standards and Technology

National Planning Workshop – Nanoscale Science and Engineering for Agriculture and Food Systems

November 18, 2002

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, you know something about it. But when you cannot measure it, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind. It may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely advanced to the stage of science.”

Metrology: The science of measurement; a system of measures

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin 1824 - 1907

NIST works closely with scientists and industry to develop the

Nation’s metrology infrastructure necessary for scientific, technical,

and economic advances.

NIST Assets Include: 3,000 employees

1,600 guest researchers

$820 million annual budget

NIST Laboratories -- National measurement standards

Advanced Technology Program -- $640 million current R&D partnerships with industry

Manufacturing Extension Partnership -- 400 centers nationwide to help small manufacturers

Baldrige National Quality Award

NIST’s mission is to develop and promote measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life.

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Multidisciplinary expertise to develop measurements and standards to enable:

• Science• Technology Innovation• Trade• Public benefit

NIST Laboratories

NIST plans and works in close collaboration with customers:• Industry• Other agencies• State and local governments• Measurement laboratories• Standards organizations

Grand Challenge: Instrumentation and Metrology

Measurements & Standards for Nanotechnology

• Measurements – critical to understanding of new phenomena

– needed to control production, ensure product quality, and enable different parts to work together.

– size and complexity of nanoscale objects will make the development of new measurement technologies more critical than ever.

• Facilities

• Standards and traceability – essential for trade.

Grand Challenge: Instrumentation and Metrology

Measurement issues for new analytical tools and supporting infrastructure.– Resolution

• molecular to atomic spatial scales • high speed temporal scales

– Sensitivity and Specificity• molecular or atomic level sensitivity and specificity with

simultaneous imaging and identification• simultaneous multiple spectroscopies for chemical and

physical properties– 3-D characterization capability, atom by atom, or molecule by

molecule, over many thousands of atoms.– Improvements must be made in the physical understanding of

current instruments– Supporting models, methods, standards, data

Unique NIST Measurement and Research Facilities

Advanced Chemical Sciences Laboratory

Provides critical capabilities for nanobiotechnology and

analytical chemistry research

NIST Center for Neutron Research

Most versatile neutron facility in the U.S. with over 1750 annual users

Advanced Measurement Laboratory

World’s premier measurement research facility (air quality, temperature, vibration, humidity)

Completion targeted for 2004

Our traditional view of measurements and standards:

Primary Labs

Secondary Labs and Customers

Comparisons

Traceability

How does nanotechnology change this view?

Measurement Standards and Traceability

Standards and Traceability for Nanotechnology

Challenge: Deliver nanoscale traceability to the factory floor

Opportunity: Develop quantum standards based on nano-phenomena – Electricity

• use quantized electron devices to create known electrical currents (already realized!)

– Mass

• use macromolecules of known mass as building blocks of a gram

– Chemical Concentration

• use single known molecules as building blocks for materials with known composition

– Distance

• use lattice spacing in pure crystals

NIST Role in International Standards for Nanotechnology

• Formal documentary standards – Committees developing draft standards for commercial

nanoscale instrumentation

• Standards support for industry/trade associations– Atom-based dimensional standards for linewidth, step height

and geometry of grids – Small force measurements down to nanonewton

• Coordination of the National Metrology Institutions– Mutual Recognition Agreements: International Committee on

Weights and Measures (CIPM)– Line scale comparisons for 290 nm and 700 nm 1D grating

measurements – Comparisons on nanometer step heights, linewidths, and 2D

grids

Strategic Directions

• Nanomaterial characterization – $12.2M

• Nanobiotechnology - $3.6M

• Basic nanoscale metrology - $6.9M

• Quantum devices and measurements - $11.1M

• Nanomagnetics - $7.2M

• Nanoelectronics - $9.6M

FY02 levels of effort

Nanomaterials Characterization

Metrology for nanostructures and nanocomposites:

• Measurement and characterization:

Structure Composition Properties – electrical,

optical, magnetic, mechanical…

• Process control: Integration and

arrangement of structures Defects and impurities Composition map of a Mn-C-O particle

taken by energy-filtered TEM

Nanomaterials Characterization

Cluster Beam Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS)

• Single ion beam SIMS: Current industry tool for

characterizing surfaces

• NIST metrology work:

pioneered use cluster SIMS

improved accuracy

allow depth profiling with sub-nm resolution

• Recent Accomplishment:

Characterized high explosive particles in support of airport security activities

Cluster SIMS secondary ion image of the intact molecular ions from a mixture of RDX and PETN explosive particles dispersed on a silicon collector surface.

Nanobiotechnology

Metrology for:

• Single molecule measurement

• Bio-NEMS

• Tissue engineering

• Characterization of bioactive systems and bio-inorganic interfaces

• Single molecule spectroscopy

• Assemblage of bio-active 3-D structures

Nanobiotechnology

Biomimetic Surfaces

Interfaces: Electronic, Optical, Mechanical,

and Fluidic

NanofabricationNanoElectroMechanical

Systems (NEMS) Nanofluidics

NanoBioTechnology

Electronic, Optical and Mechanical Measurements

Fabrication and Measurement Suite on a Common Platform

Nanobiotechnology

Metrology Work:

Single molecule probes

Structure and dynamics of single RNA molecules

Fluidic systems to transport single molecules

Reaction rates and dynamics of individual biomolecules

• Recent Accomplishment:

Technique for rapid evaluation of materials at the nanoscale using dye molecules

Dye molecule orientation probes nanoscale environment. b) stationary; c)-g) rotated molecules

Nanobiotechnology

Use of single model biological pore to:

• Understand physics of DNA & polymer transport

• Detect specific analytes

• Design method for characterizing nanopores

• Understand principles of an ultra-rapid DNA sequencing engine

Proposed electrical characterization of discrete DNA segments fed through a nanopore manufactured with NEMS technology

Basic Nanoscale Metrology

Measurements based on fundamental quantities and principles

• Standard reference materials and artifacts for calibrating nanoscale analytical instruments

• Metrology for determination of dimensions, microforce and physical quantities

• Methods and procedures to measure time-domain properties (µs to fs)

Schematic of user-interfaced instrument for 10 nm accuracy 2-D feature

placement measurements

Basic Nanoscale MetrologyHigh Precision Electrical Metrology

Nanocircuit that pumps one electron at a time to a capacitor

• NIST metrology work:

Single electron-tunneling based technologies

Fundamental representation of electrical quantities

Capacitance standard by counting the number of electrons in a nanocircuit

Quantum current standard under development

• Recent Accomplishment:

Determined capacitance standard can be run in a compact, transportable refrigerator

Quantified error mechanism for standard – predict precision of one part in 107

Quantum Devices and Measurements

Metrology for nanodevices dependent on quantum interactions:

• Electrical and electronic properties of quantum devices

• Nanostructure and magnetism

• Quantum and spin electronics

• Laser cooled and trapped atoms and ions:

Quantum computing

Atom optics

Schematic of NIST Nanoscale Physics Facility

for quantum and spin electronics metrology

Quantum Devices and Measurements

Quantum computing using laser cooled atoms and ions

Atoms trapped in potential wells by laser cooling

• NIST Pioneering Work:“qubits”: confined single

atoms and ions for use as bits of quantum information

High information density – superposition of states

Two Nobel Prizes in Physics: 1997 and 2001

• Recent Accomplishment: Move ions between traps without causing heating

• Goal by 2006: Demonstrate a 10 Qubit register

Nanomagnetics

Metrology of nanoscale magnetic structures:

• Imaging

• Determination and modeling of nanoscale properties

• Mechanisms and limitations of dynamics

Normal modes of the magnetization in a 20 nm thick Permalloy (Ni80Fe20)

thin film oscillating at 9 GHz.

Nanoelectronics

Metrology Issues Related to:

• Nanolithography

• Molecular electronics

• Electrical test measurements

• Nano-component fabrication

• System assembly100 nm

Superconformal electrodeposition of Cu interconnects

NIST’s Role in Nanotechnology

Nanoscale measurement & standards development

U.S. measurement & standards infrastructure

Commercialization of nanotechnologies

Facilitate international trade