Securing fragile nanostructures against external impact is indispensable for offering sufficiently long lifetime in service to nanoengineering products, especially when coming in contact with other substances. Indeed, this problem still remains a challenging task, which may be resolved with the help of smart materials such as shape memory and self-healing materials. Here, we demonstrate a shape memory nanostructure that can recover its shape by absorbing electromagnetic energy. Fullerenes were embedded into the fabricated nanolens array. Beside the energy absorption, such addition enables a remarkable enhancement in mechanical properties of shape memory polymer. The shape memory nanolens was numerically modeled to impart more in-depth understanding on the physics regarding shape recovery behavior of the fabricated nanolens. We anticipate that our strategy of combining the shape memory property with the microwave irradiation feature can provide a new pathway for nanostructured systems able to ensure a long-term durability.
Spin-on dielectric (SOD) is widely used in semiconductor industry, to form insulating layers including shallow trench isolation (STI) or inter-layer dielectrics (ILD). SOD has several advantages over high density plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDP-CVD) for manufacturing process, such as less defect and higher throughput. However, both SOD and HDP-CVD have a drawback, which is a high temperature curing process required to make pure silicon oxide layers.High temperature curing could cause high stress and thermal distortion. These disadvantages are becoming more problematic as the semiconductor device shrinks. To resolve the problem, we tested several additives to moderate the curing temperature. It was found out that amine compounds were effective to convert SOD polymer into silicon oxide, therefore the curing process could be performed at a lower temperature. We also observed that the SOD films containing amine additives have higher etch resistance during a wet etch process. These results, as well as the lower curing temperature, are beneficial for manufacturing insulating layers. Further investigation is ongoing to characterize other film properties of the SOD with additives, and to optimize the formulation conditions according to the requirements of manufacturing processes.
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