Calcium phosphate (CaP) polymorphs are nontoxic, biocompatible and hold promise in applications ranging from hard tissue regeneration to drug delivery and vaccine design. Yet, simple and robust routes for the synthesis of protein-coated CaP nanoparticles in the sub-100 nm size range remain elusive. Here, we used cell surface display to identify disulfide-constrained CaP binding peptides that, when inserted within the active site loop of E. coli Thioredoxin 1 (TrxA), readily and reproducibly drive the production of nanoparticles that are 50–70 nm in hydrodynamic diameter and consist of an approximately 25 nm amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) core stabilized by the protein shell. Like bone and enamel proteins implicated in biological apatite formation, peptides supporting nanoparticle production were acidic. They also required presentation in a loop for high affinity ACP binding since elimination of the disulfide bridge caused a nearly 3-fold increase in hydrodynamic diameters. When compared to a commercial aluminum phosphate adjuvant, the small core-shell assemblies led to a 3-fold increase in mice anti-TrxA titers three weeks post-injection, suggesting that they might be useful vehicles for adjuvanted antigen delivery to dendritic cells.

The impurities incorporated in the electrodeposited 40 nm Cu lines as well as in blanket Cu films were studied. Two different levelers were used in the study. While the impurity in the blanket films were found highly dependent on the leveler and its concentration, the leveler had no impact on the impurity in the narrow lines. Furthermore, the concentrations of suppressor and chloride showed little to no impact on the impurity in the narrow lines. An increase of accelerator concentration resulted in higher S and Cl contents in the lines. The increase in S incorporation was also observed for blanket wafers plated with incremental concentrations of accelerator. In addition, the impurity in the narrow lines was also found to increase with the increase of the applied plating current density. A correlation between a slow Cu grain growth and high impurity content was established by using Cu blanket films plated with different leveler concentrations or Cu films ion-implanted with different doses of impurities.

Direct-write nanomanufacturing with scanning beams and probes is flexible and can produce high quality products, but it is normally slow and expensive to raster point-by-point over a pattern. We demonstrate the use of an accelerated direct-write nanomanufacturing method called 'orchestrated structure evolution' (OSE), where a direct-write tool patterns a small number of growth 'seeds' that subsequently grow into the final thin film pattern. Through control of seed size and spacing, it is possible to vary the ratio of 'top-down' to 'bottom-up' character of the patterning processes, ranging from conventional top-down raster patterning to nearly pure bottom-up space-filling via seed growth. Electron beam lithography (EBL) and copper electrodeposition were used to demonstrate trade-offs between process time and product quality over nano- to microlength scales. OSE can reduce process times for high-cost EBL patterning by orders of magnitude, at the expense of longer (but inexpensive) copper electrodeposition processing times. We quantify the degradation of pattern quality that accompanies fast OSE patterning by measuring deviations from the desired patterned area and perimeter. We also show that the density of OSE-induced grain boundaries depends upon the seed separation and size. As the seed size is reduced, the uniformity of an OSE film becomes more dependent on details of seed nucleation processes than normally seen for conventionally patterned films.

Orchestrated structure evolution (OSE) is a scalable manufacturing method that combines the advantages of top-down (tool-directed) and bottom-up (self-propagating) approaches. The method consists of a seed patterning step that defines where material nucleates, followed by a growth step that merges seeded islands into the final patterned thin film. We develop a model to predict the completed pattern based on a computationally efficient approximate Green's function solution of the diffusion equation plus a Voronoi diagram based approach that defines the final grain boundary structure. Experimental results rely on electron beam lithography to pattern the seeds, followed by the mass transfer limited growth of copper via electrodeposition. The seed growth model is compared with experimental results to quantify nearest neighbor seed-to-seed interactions as well as how seeds interact with the pattern boundary to impact the local growth rate. Seed-to-seed and seed-to-pattern interactions are shown to result in overgrowth of seeds on edges and corners of the shape, where seeds have fewer neighbors. We explore how local changes to the seed location can be used to improve the patterning quality without increasing the manufacturing cost. OSE is shown to enable a unique set of trade-offs between the cost, time, and quality of thin film patterning.

No abstract

Incorporation of a small amount of a secondary metal element such as tin, indium or aluminum into copper interconnects structures has been shown to improve the device reliability and electromigration. In this study, the incorporation of tin during copper damascene plating was investigated at conditions that allow void-free filling. The study focused on the effects of the additive package used, the current density, and the feature size on the tin incorporation. The Sn concentration in Cu was found to increase with the non-metallic impurity levels. Because the plating chemistry and plating current have strong impacts on the incorporation of the non-metallic impurities, they were also found to change the Sn incorporation. For example, Cu films plated at a lower current density, which showed higher non-metallic impurity levels, were also found to incorporate more Sn, opposite to the expectation from the more negative reversible potential of Sn. In addition, the Sn incorporation is also higher in narrow lines as compared with overburden films which, correlate well to findings for non-metallic impurity levels. By combining a plating chemistry which results in high non-metallic impurity levels and a low current density, 60nm wide Cu lines with up to about 0.1% Sn were plated, a 10-fold increase from the overburden film.

Orchestrated structure evolution is an alternative nanomanufacturing approach that combines the advantages of top-down patterning and bottom-up self-organizing growth. It relies upon tool-directed patterning to create 'seed' locations on a surface from which a subsequent deposition process produces the final, merged film. Despite its demonstrated ability to reduce patterning time by orders of magnitude, our prior reliance on mass transfer limited deposition and square seed arrays resulted in extraneous film growth along pattern edges, thereby limiting the pattern quality of the final film. Here, quality improvements are demonstrated by modeling and tuning the growth mechanism of the deposition step to include charge transfer effects. In addition, a seed positioning optimization technique derived from simulated annealing is introduced as a method for relocating the seeds to minimize film overgrowth at the pattern edges. These improvements enable OSE to maintain geometric quality while substantially reducing the time and cost compared to traditional direct-write manufacturing methods.

Designer proteins that incorporate solid-binding peptides hold promise to control the nucleation, growth, morphology, and assembly of inorganic phases under mild conditions of temperature and pressure. However, protein-aided nanofabrication remains more art than science and some materials can only be synthesized at temperatures that cause most mesophilic proteins to unfold. Using zinc oxide (ZnO) synthesis at 70°C as case study, we show here that seemingly unimportant variables, such as the carry-over concentration of Tris buffer and the "empty" host protein scaffold can exert a significant influence on materials morphology. We also show that, once well-controlled conditions are established, thermodynamic predictions and adsorption isotherms are powerful tools to understand how various ZnO-binding sequence inserted within the thermostable framework of Escherichia coli thioredoxin A (TrxA) affect inorganic morphogenesis.