Self-assembly of nanostructures and nanomaterials

Presently, most microelectronic devices are fabricated using top-down approaches. According to Moore’s law, with the predicted ultimate reduction in size over the next years, these processes will reach the limits of technological instrument resolution. In addition, a major bottleneck in top-down approaches is the prohibitive cost due to the large number of technological steps required to reduce the device size. Furthermore, a broad range of applications require ultrasmall, complex devices that cannot be produced using top-down methods. New processes building on the natural self-organization of matter should therefore be conceived and developed, along with adequate characterization methods in order to allow for their application in innovative devices. Such self-organization processes are already implemented in various materials such as biological materials, soft matter, metals and semiconductors. Self-assembly is a process that builds an ordered structure, brick-by-brick, starting from disordered building blocks, using simple key ingredients. Self-assembly is commonly controlled by certain intrinsic material parameters (e.g., composition, strain, thickness, phase transformation, structural changes) and results from the interaction between different factors (e.g., deposit/substrate, liquid/ gas/solid phases, crystals). Besides these intrinsic parameters, a number of extrinsic factors, including thermal treatment, chemical and electrochemical reactions, mechanical stress, electric or magnetic fields, can strongly influence the self-assembled morphologies.