IRRADIANT TECHNOLOGIES INC. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 18a

Description

Fully 3D nanofabrication has been a long sought-after goal in technology; however, methods to achieve it have suffered from a combination of poor resolution, low throughput, and a lack of useful material options. Additionally, access to the components and devices produced by micro- and nanofabrication is necessary for any modern society and constitutes both a strategic competitive advantage and significant national security need. However, huge capital costs of nanomanufacturing has caused production to concentrate in only a few dozen centralized manufacturing facilities, most of which are located outside the United States. This leaves many technologies highly susceptible to disruptions from conflict or other disasters natural or manmade. Moreover, due to a lack of good rapid prototyping technologies in nanofabrication the development cycle has become increasingly slow and costly. Irradiant Technologies seeks to address all of these problems is nanomanufacturing with an ultrafast 3D lithography system combined with our new materials platform. This has the protentional to upend the current paradigm by: 1) expanding the design space in 3D, thus simplifying development and permitting the fabricationof entirely new classes of devices; 2) enabling a less costly process capable of both rapid prototyping and mass manufacturing, thus decentralizing development and production; 3) combining rapid prototyping and expanded design space, thus creating a development platform capable of reducing both time and costs involved in research and development. The ultrafast 3D lithography system, called line scanning temporally focused two-photon lithography (ls-TFTPL), is capable of patterning entire planes simultaneously with digital control over every voxel. This will enable voxel/second throughputs never before possible while allowing for the capability to rapid prototype; all in a lithography system that is over 100-fold cheaper than the cutting edge in 2D nanofabrication, extreme ultraviolet lithography. Our new materials platform, Implosion Fabrication (ImpFab), is a fundamentally new technology with never before seen capabilities. With ImpFab it is possible to achieve scalable, multi-material, 3D nanofabrication in any geometry, with resolutions in the tens of nanometers. The unique capabilities of a combined ls-TFTPL/ImpFab system will allow us achieve higher resolution and throughput than has ever been possible with equipment significantly less expensive than the state of the art in nanofabrication. In Phase I we will assemble and test the capabilities of our ls-TFTPL/ImpFab system. This will enable us to fully implement our system in Phase II to achieve unprecedented throughput and functionality. This will entail three things. First, the construction and testing of an ls-TFTPL system. Second, the optimization of the ImpFab chemistry that makes it require far less energy. Third, the combination of ImpFab and ls-TFTPL in a synergistic manner. The commercialization of the system developed through this SBIR will make it economically viable to create nanotechnology with complex 3D geometries out of useful materials. This will improve both access to and implementation of new nanotechnologies. In the short term this will enable photonic devices that can reduce the vast energy consumption in telecommunication, computation, and datacenters.