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Writing and Erasing Nanostructures with Electrons in Liquids

Abstract:

Focused electron beam-induced processing (FEBIP) is a direct-write/-erase technique for nanoscale patterning of materials via interactions of keV electrons with suitable precursors. Traditionally, organometallic gases are injected into the chamber of an electron microscope where some of the molecules dissociate under electron impact onto substrates to deposit nanostructures of non-volatile products or etch away volatile ones. Despite its technological promise, gas-phase FEBIP has long suffered from low purity of deposits as well as toxicity, instability, and lack of precursors. In this talk, I will survey the methods, materials, and mechanisms for LP-FEBIP—a natural extension of this technique to bulk liquid-phase (LP) precursors that has demonstrated deposition and etching of various nanostructures with high purity, rate, resolution, and fidelity. Among the successes of LP-FEBIP are some plasmonic (Ag, AuAg, AuPt), photovoltaic (CdS, PbS), and ceramic (Si₃N₄) materials that have so far eluded its gas-phase counterpart.

Bio:

Dr. Eugenii U. Donev is an assistant professor of physics at the University of the South (popularly known as Sewanee) in Tennessee. After graduating from Sewanee with a B.S. degree in physics and completing M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics at Vanderbilt University, he received postdoctoral training at the University of Kentucky, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Donev’s current teaching and research interests often intersect as he adapts elements of his work on the fabrication, optical interrogation, and numerical simulation of functional plasmonic and photonic nanostructures into advanced laboratory projects for undergraduate physics students.