PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A team of U.S. scientists reports eliminating a major obstacle to the mass production of smaller, cheaper microchips.
Led by Princeton University Professor Stephen Chou, the researchers say they developed a technique that eliminates the tiny air bubbles that form when liquid droplets are molded into intricate circuits.
The formation of such bubbles has been an impediment in one form of nanoimprint lithography, a revolutionary method invented by Chou in the 1990s. Nanoimprint uses a nanometer-scale mold to pattern computer chips and other nanostructures -- in contrast to conventional methods that use beams of light, electrons or ions to carve designs onto devices.
The nanoimprint technique allows the creation of circuits and devices with features not much longer than a nanometer -- more than 10 times smaller than is possible in today's mass-produced chips, yet more than 10 times cheaper.
The findings by the team that also included Princeton electrical engineers Xiaogan Liang and Zengli Fu, as well as Hua Tan of the Nanonex Corp. founded by Chou in 1999, are reported in the current issue of the journal Nanotechnology.
