WIMS Current Activities Report

WIMS2 Center Facilities

The University of Michigan Robert H. Lurie Nanofabrication Facility

The Lurie Nanofabrication Facility (LNF) in the College of Engineering began operation in September 1986, and today offers complete capabilities for the fabrication and characterization of solid-state materials, devices, and circuits using silicon, compound semiconductors, and organic materials. The LNF supports research on integrated photonics and optoelectronics, organic and molecular electronics, optical displays, microwave devices and circuits, semiconductor materials and metrology, nanotechnology and nanofabrication, integrated circuits, solid-state sensors and actuators, microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS), and integrated microsystems. Research in compound semiconductors focuses on the growth and characterization of wide- and narrow-bandgap semiconductors, new high-speed and microwave device structures, optoelectronics, and millimeter-wave heterostructure devices. Work in integrated photonics and optoelectronics includes III-V semiconductor growth by molecular beam epitaxy, self-organized quantum dots, photonic crystal devices for quantum computing, single-photon light sources, and integrated bio-photonics. Research in organic and inorganic thin-film devices focuses on thin-film transistors, integrated circuits and light-emitting devices on glass and plastic substrates, hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin-film transistors for flat- panel displays and sensors, and active-matrix organic light-emitting displays.

Research on integrated circuits includes low-power, high-precision sensor interface circuits, ultra-low-power embedded computing, wireless telemetry, and high-speed, analog-to-digital converters. A major focus of the LNF is research on microsystems, merging low-power electronics with high-frequency MEMS resonators, inertial devices (accelerometers, gyros), integrated physical and chemical sensors, microfluidic cell sorting and diagnostic systems, implantable biomedical sensors, neural interfaces, environmental monitoring systems, energy scavenging systems, and advanced wafer-level hermetic packaging. Thus, the LNF supports a very broad array of technologies and processes for programs that address a wide number of important national priorities.

The LNF is supported by a Laboratory Manager, three area supervisors, and 18 engineers. Additional staff provide direct support for various research programs. Graduate students perform most of the processing in the LNF as part of their doctoral thesis projects.

The original LNF consisted of 7,000 square feet of Class 100/10 work area located in five process bays and in rooms dedicated to lithography, metrology, and materials growth. The LNF was recently expanded by adding 5,000 square feet of new cleanroom backed up by 38,000 square feet of new state-of-the-art infrastructure space. This expansion was supported entirely by gifts to the University and is now being equipped to support microsystems research and nanotechnology. The new equipment includes 20 diffusion/oxidation/CVD furnaces, two STS Pegasus DRIE systems, two AM P5000 cluster tools for CVD and dry etching, facilities for carbon nanotube growth, a state-of-the-art electron-beam lithography system, and an imaging SEM capable of sub-10nm resolution.

The following table summarizes the fabrication, packaging, and testing capabilities in the LNF. A more detailed list of equipment is available at www.engin.umich.edu/LNF.

In 2009, the LNF was used by 219 researchers (157 internal and 62 external) for a total of over 33,000 hours. These users represented 11 departments within the University of Michigan, 13 other universities, and 23 companies. There were also 26 remote users handled through the MEMS Exchange Program. During the past decade, 18 startup companies have been launched by LNF faculty and students, building a high-tech critical mass that could dramatically improve the local, state, and national economies.

The LNF is one of 13 nodes that comprise the NSF-funded National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN). The NNIN is responsible for providing open access to the facilities of its member universities in support of all aspects of micro- and nano-device fabrication, characterization, computation, and analysis. Like the WIMS ERC, the NNIN supports a number of outreach and educational programs and acts as a platform for addressing social-ethical issues involved in nanotechnology. The LNF provides expertise in general micro- and nano-fabrication, MEMS, BioMEMS, integrated microsystems, packaging, circuit fabrication, and sensor-circuit integration to this network. More detailed information about the capabilities of the NNIN can be found on its Web site (www.nnin.org) or on (www.engin.umich.edu/LNF).

Updated 01/09/2012