Nanoscale 3D Printer Now Commercially Available

kkleiner writes "Now the field of 3D printing has advanced so far that a company called Nanoscribe is offering one of the first commercially available 3D printers for the nanoscale. Nanoscribe's machine can produce tiny 3D printed objects that are only the width of a single human hair. Amazingly this includes 3D printed objects such as spaceships, micro needles, or even the empire state building."

Comments

Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[John Hasler]

n/t

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Anonymous Coward]

typical bs clickbait headline.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[ThePeices]

so 30nm resolution is not nano scale enough for you?

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[John Hasler]

> so 30nm resolution is not nano scale enough for you?

That's 3% at one micron: barely adequate for devices with minimum dimensions of one micron and up. For nanoscale devices you need one nanometer or better.

Look at the examples. They're all dimensioned in the tens to hundreds of microns.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Vitriol Angst]

I get your point, but I think you and Slashdot have to come to terms with the fact that "nano" is now buzz-word compliant. It's like how "Sanitation Engineer" started making everyone an engineer.

"Nano" actually now means "small" to the press. I'm sorry it isn't technically correct, but you are going to have to get used to it.

Now, I've got some bad news to tell you about "quantum" as well...

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Idou]

Yes, technically it is only micro . . . until you use it to print a printer, which can print true nano.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[hairyfish]

"Nano" actually now means "small" to the press. I'm sorry it isn't technically correct, but you are going to have to get used to it.

No we're not. I can accept this interpretation in the local rag, but Slashdot's target audience is smart people (apparently). We should be sticking to technically accurate terminology at all times.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

"nice tits"???

Re: Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nano" is considered sub 100 nm in any one spatial dimension, as defined by government funding agencies.

If that happens to mean anything to you :D

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[KGIII]

For nanoscale devices you need one nanometer or better.

Pardon my ignorance but, according to whom? My attempt to seek clarification on this wasn't very fruitful and the definitions that I found insisted that it only had to relate to scale of nanometers which this device purports to do. Is it that you want it to mean something else or am I missing something?

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[dissy]

It's a bit of a long read, but (IMHO) one of the best sources on the matter is Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler.

He describes the very concept of nanotechnology, defines it as well as much philosophy around it, with plenty of examples of thing that can be done once manufacturing on this scale is achieved.

Such machines do technically already exist, such as the ribosome. Once a similar machine is created that is under complete human control pragmatically, it will be a world altering event.

If you think of the process of a cell performing its work, dividing, assembling its programmed structure, and eventually creating something on the macro scale like a whale or elephant - then you are thinking on the right scale.

The 3D printer referenced in the article is not yet able to produce structures at this scale, let alone functional machines at this scale.
At best it might be one step on the path towards true nanotechnology, as smaller tools build smaller tools and so on.

Some additional material on the subject that found recently was on youtube under productive nanosystems
While this is purely an artists rendering, one video I happened upon that really brings home the scale factor is their nano-factory video.

This is what most people are referring to when using the term nanotechnology.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[voidphoenix]

Nanoscopic Scale (redirected from Nanoscale): The nanoscopic scale usually refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1-100 nanometers.

Nanotechnology: A more generalized description of nanotechnology was subsequently established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defines nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers. (emphasis mine)

What you're thinking about is probably (also from the Nanotechnology article)

The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as molecular nanotechnology.

Definitions change and sometimes, as in this case, become more precisely delineated. This printer is nanoscale by current definitions and it's a pretty big leap forward for small-scale design and manufacturing. For some perspective, Intel and AMD introduced 32nm processors in 2010 and Intel brought out 22nm processors last year.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[KGIII]

Thank you VERY much and, obviously, I haven't read it yet but I'll push my way through it when I'm done going through my daily ritual of reading, posting, and catching up. I appreciate it more than it may seem and your well thought out answer is something I see less frequently around here so my appreciation goes up accordingly. It doesn't really totally answer my question though I guess it does indirectly? So, please correct me if I'm mistaken...

The dictionary definition of nanoscale means something related to, or measured in, nanometers which, of course, could include very large objects being measured in nanometers for no other reason other than that's the unit of measurement the person chose. This definition, while fine for a layperson or a generic use dictionary, isn't adequate for academic or professional use.

Thus, either definitively or colloquially, the term "nanoscale" is more specifically, technologically or professionally, restricted to things measuring 1 nanometer or less?

Is that correct or correct enough for a laypersons vocabulary?

Once again, I appreciate the answer and will plod through the Engines of Creation because a quick glance indicates that it is very interesting.

One of the major benefits (that I can see) is that this printer doesn't NEED to print stuff that small - it CAN print stuff that small which means that larger objects can be printed with a greater degree of accuracy. I see the precision being the benefit more so than the scale being the benefit. The majority of commenters here on /. seem to be concentrating on how small they can potentially build things which is great and all but my thoughts immediately went to how larger things can be made with a finer degree of accuracy which means less trimming, greater tolerances, and greater control when prototyping.

Again, thanks.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[dissy]

You're quite welcome! This has always been a fascinating subject to me, both in terms of the science around it as well as the science fictiony type day dreams it can invoke. (And appologies in advance if this reply turns into a nice long rambling on the subject)
We are well on our way to this level of technology already, and the future is looking to be too amazing for words.

The dictionary definition of nanoscale means something related to, or measured in, nanometers which, of course, could include very large objects being measured in nanometers for no other reason other than that's the unit of measurement the person chose. This definition, while fine for a layperson or a generic use dictionary, isn't adequate for academic or professional use.

Thus, either definitively or colloquially, the term "nanoscale" is more specifically, technologically or professionally, restricted to things measuring 1 nanometer or less?

Is that correct or correct enough for a laypersons vocabulary?

I actually wish there was a more definitive answer everyone could agree on to give you.
Some say 1nm or less, others say measuring in single digits or fractions of a nm, while others say measuring in the units of nm.

Of course that last one has the very problem you point out. A millimeter is just a million nanometers after all. I can sort of see the point when basing things on the metric scale of 1000's, but that would include objects up to the size of 999nm, before switching to the next unit of measurement (micro), such as this 3D printer is using.

Because nanotechnology specifically refers to objects, devices, and machines built at the atomic/molecular scale, I personally subscribe to the "1nm or less" school of thought in order to link the two more easily for me. However I can definitely understand where others are coming from when using the "under 1nm up to 10nm" definition.

For a direct answer, I would say that yes you are correct, with the condition that larger than 1nm is acceptable (getting less and less acceptable for each order of magnitude higher one goes ;)

For a good mental image, say one created a computer that was truly nanoscale, lets say 10 nano meters long, with the same power as your smart phone currently has.
You would be able to stack 100 of those devices end to end, and still fit the whole combined structure inside a living human cell with plenty of room left over around it.

Or put another way, my phone is about 5 inches tall. If this was nanoscale and we put 100 of them end to end, 500 inches is almost 13 meters, or just over 40 feet long.

One of the major benefits (that I can see) is that this printer doesn't NEED to print stuff that small - it CAN print stuff that small which means that larger objects can be printed with a greater degree of accuracy. I see the precision being the benefit more so than the scale being the benefit. The majority of commenters here on /. seem to be concentrating on how small they can potentially build things which is great and all but my thoughts immediately went to how larger things can be made with a finer degree of accuracy which means less trimming, greater tolerances, and greater control when prototyping.

That is a very good point! In fact, when looking at the device in comparison to our current high end 3D printers, this is a major advancement that may solve quite a few problems already being run into on the edge cases. Higher tolerances on larger objects is still extremely useful.

I suppose it's not dissimilar to comparing our little home computers, in that we can afford them easily along with all they are capable of, to the "big iron" from the likes of IBM and cray, showing what humanity is capable of at the high end.

This printer most certainly puts a little reprap to shame ;}

I certainly wasn't intending to put down their accomplishment, in case it came off that way.
But the

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Sigg3.net]

That's what she said.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[jones_supa]

Yesterday while I was logged on there was a comment like that (without the "it's"), and the substitution of "loose" for "lose" completely changed the sentence's meaning. When I pointed it out, my comment was moderated "troll". So apparently, many of the the moderators are just as fucking retarded as way too many commenters.

Malicious modding has certainly increased over the recent years. Today a system would make sense where you could not downmod comments but you could only upvote them.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Anonymous Coward]

The next tome you get mod points, please mod any obvious high school dropout's comments "troll", because if wanted to see ramblings by uneducated morons I'l go to Yahoo News or Fox. If you're not educated, you don't belong here.

LOL, good one.

"time", not "tome"
"dropouts", not "dropout's
"because if I want to see", not "because if wanted to see"
"I'll", not "I'l"
subject "you get mod points" in first clause doesn't match "if I want to see" in second.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[hierophanta]

agreed, we, the populous of slashdot are indeed responsible to make these remarks and be bothered by the incorrect usage of scientific words. Why? because we f'n care: that is why. That is what makes us different than the folks that would be bored reading a site where the nitty gritty is debated to exhaustion. lets not take our charge lightly nor give up in the face of shit media outlets.

i'm being very serious here

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[Pigeon451]

Many technologies in physics are classified as nanoscale, such as nanoparticles 100 nm. I've heard it also defined for 300 nm. Nanoscale simply means in the nm-range.

To get 1 nm resolution, you would need a "pico-scale" device.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[almitydave]

Well, I don't much of substance to add to this conversation, so I'll be pedantic instead. The possessive "dropout's" is actually correct in this case, since he's talking about comments belonging to a hypothetical dropout. And the subject "you" is correct because he's requesting others take a specified action, the reason for which is to improve his own experience while reading the comments.

Personally, I think Slashdot's mod system is about as good as you're going to get on an anonymous internet forum. Good posts tend to get modded up, bad posts tend to get modded down. We need the -1 for posts that are actually worse than simply mediocre (or just haven't attracted interest). I browse at -1 to see everything, and can filter out the stupidity myself when I feel like it.

I like that Slashdot's readership has a much higher-than-average technical knowledge (expected due to the nature of the site), but I don't find the civility to be better than the rest of the internet when corrected for what I assume is a higher age and hopefully maturity.

Regarding the meaning of "nanoscale", I'm not aware of an accepted IEEE defition, or anything similar. Various opinions of its definition range from:
Google: "Of a size measurable in nanometers or microns."
American Heritage Science Dictionary: "Relating to or occurring on a scale of nanometers."
PC Magazine: "At nanometer size. Any device only a few nanometers in size is nanoscale. Nanotechnology is said to comprise elements less than 100 nanometers in size (100 nm)."
Wikipedia gets a little more specific, but claims 1-100 nanometers as one criterion.

The resolution of this printer, at 30nm, seems to satisfy the letter of these definitions, so I'd say it's correct enough to say it's a "nanoscale printer." It's technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

Re:Amazing technology but micro, not nano.

[almitydave]

As usual, I didn't read far enough down before posting. Thanks for your concise explanation; it's exactly right. I'd mod you up if I had points.

Just what I wanted

[Osgeld]

Nano Trinkets

Save space on your shelf for more useless plastic models, combine two buzzwords at once, join the future today with nanomakerbot 2.0!

Re:Just what I wanted

[Angelwrath]

"Look honey, it's a nano bouquet of flowers."

"What is this, a joke?!"

Re:Just what I wanted

[TheLink]

It's nothing to sneeze at.

Re:Just what I wanted

[TheLink]

Nano Trinkets

You can make money selling trinkets. So if it can create something in the centimeter scale with nanometer details in a short space of time (hours or even minutes) then it might be interesting for making custom jewellery. That's assuming you can do iridescent colours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration

Re:Just what I wanted

[Opportunist]

Just wait 'til Apple hears about it and creates the new iPod nanonano. The one that you can plug completely into your ear.

But I guess it would be hard to market to the usual Apple crowd. I mean, who'd know that they have an Apple product if it is invisible to the naked eye?

Re:Just what I wanted

[tibit]

There'll be a glowing white apple logo in your ear. Just large enough and bright enough to be noticed :)

Amazing

[Crookdotter]

And again. That video is amazing.

Re:Amazing

[kermidge]

Yeah, had to watch it twice just for the grin I got from watching it the first time. This is some serious nerdsmanship.

I'd like to know where one might use a stent 20nm. wide.

Re:Amazing

[flimflammer]

Exactly which one of us said it isn't?

Re:Amazing

[kermidge]

I'm childish enough to find many things amazing.

Sometimes in the wee hours when the mind roams I still get a hint of the simple rush from my first experience with an interactive computer, one of the early 8-bit machines: I press a key, and a letter shows up on the screen. Very simple it is; yet all the tech, all the science underlying it, the full range of variously insightful to plodding accomplishments needed to design and build the circuits and instructions still fascinates. I try to appreciate and accord value to well-designed, well-made items that are shepherded through the constraints of materials, cost to build, and market vagaries, amongst others - be it a nail clippers or a CPU.

My knowledge being small, my understanding smaller, my ignorance vast as Universe, there's plenty for amazement.

Am I amazed enough for you, or will you slough me off as simply dotty?

Re:Amazing

[VoidCrow]

I feel pretty much the same way. People take so much for granted, Even cutlery,,, how long would it take for an Iron Age blacksmith to craft a single cutlery set? Chariot wheels are actually quite complex. A composite bow? Contrast that with a modern electronic item, or any of a huge range of custom=designed materials. The insight required to modify genomes to produce somewhat predictable outcomes?

It's staggering. I think anyone who misses the significance of all of this is seriously lacking in imagination.

Re:Amazing

[tibit]

Chip fabs are expensive mainly because there isn't all that many of them. There are no economies of scale. The companies that make machines for fabs have to pay for large R&D efforts while sometimes selling on the order of 10 units per year. If there was a serious market for desktop-sized fabs, you could certainly get them for reasonable sums. A somewhat compactly designed but still entirely possible 1um process for BiCMOS on small (say 50mm) wafers could occupy the circumscribed volume of a couple large workbenches. You'd probably want the vacuum pumps and power supplies in another room, of course :) And I mean from design to a chip: a complete process where you load the mask files on one end, and get tested and encapsulated chips on the other end. It could definitely be made small and modular, but it'd take a lot of engineering to get such a unit done, and I don't see the market for it.

Re:Amazing

[radtea]

Even cutlery,,, how long would it take for an Iron Age blacksmith to craft a single cutlery set?

The fact that most cutlery nowadays is rolled stainless steel still kinda blows me away. When I was a kid (40-odd years ago) stamped mild-steel flatware coated with peeling chrome was commonplace. Today it's almost unheard of, and you can get a decent stainless steel set for $100.

Back in the day we used sterling silver flatware for fancy occasions, which you do still see now and then, but it is so much inferior to stainless that it's extremely rare (and honestly building spoons designed to stir near-boiling liquids like tea out of the best elemental conductor of heat there is was never a particularly clever move...)

If you look around you you'll see an incredible amount of amazing stuff that is of higher quality and lower cost--including lower environmental cost--than the things your parents and grandparents had, and it's only going to get better, assuming the people who don't find any of it amazing at all aren't given the power to screw things up.

"The Empire State Building"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Since when is the ESB considered "nano-scale"?

Re:"The Empire State Building"

[Bieeanda]

Ask a Zentraedi.

Re:"The Empire State Building"

[gman003]

Well, they never specified which unit the nano- was prefixed to.

A nanoparsec would be about 30,000km, a nanolightyear around 10,000km, and a nano-AU would be around 150m. By any of those, the ESB would be "nano-scale" (or below).

Re:"The Empire State Building"

[suutar]

but 'nanonians' just doesn't have the same ring...

Perfect!

[roman_mir]

It's perfect for those moments, when somebody starts complaining about stuff that you may not care about at all, because you can print the world's smallest violin and you can print the worlds smallest hands to play the smallest violin as well!

Not molecular printing unfortunately

[Twinbee]

With the mention of the word 'nano', I was hoping for an advance in molecular/atomic printing. I'd love the ability to mass produce objects (even just cubes) of various materials.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[c0lo]

With the mention of the word 'nano', I was hoping for an advance in molecular/atomic printing. I'd love the ability to mass produce objects (even just cubes) of various materials.

Careful with those - De Beers might strongly object to mass producing cubic structures from carbon atoms.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[viperidaenz]

I dare say the value of such objects will sharply decline if their production becomes cheap.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[thunderclap]

considering blood wont be shed for them I would say thats a far better idea.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[Opportunist]

Considering how I strongly object to some of their practices, you may rest assured that what I give about it is not even close to 50% of the waste product after metabolizing food.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[Opportunist]

Price may, value depends on usefulness.

Not everything that has a high value has a price tag attached to it. No matter what our market tries to blind you with.

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[suutar]

and once again we get to DeBeers :)

Re:Not molecular printing unfortunately

[Opportunist]

The products hawked by DeBeers are a quite nice counter example of something that has a high price tag but a very low value.

And before someone butts in with "but ... hardest material", realize that you can get the same kind of material from synthetic means, they just ain't so shiny.

Re:Awesome

[M0j0_j0j0]

This model only prints violins.

Getting Closer

[Master Moose]

Oh we are getting closer to being able to cheaply print vinyl records!

My deam of custom 45s in a classic home jukebox inches closer and closer.

Re:Getting Closer

[viperidaenz]

You can already buy a vinyl recorder. Why print something that was designed to be cut?

Re:Getting Closer

[Sooner Boomer]

My deam of custom 45s in a classic home jukebox inches closer and closer.

Mine too - Kimber, S&W, Norinco, Colt Custom Shop... Oh, sorry, wrong 45's...

Re:Getting Closer

[Master Moose]

Cost and convenience. The “proper gear” with expensive cutter heads that suffer from limited use wear and tear - for what, to me, would ultimately be a novelty. . .

The trial and error alone in getting the right "sound" would see many coasters and placemats quickly created.

Re:Getting Closer

[Anonymous Coward]

But there's no trial and error with 3D printing.... Sigh.... No no, it's just like Star Trek, right?

Re:Getting Closer

[viperidaenz]

You say that like this 30nm 3D printer will be cheap.

Re:Getting Closer

[Master Moose]

I say this like one day it will be cheap. ...As I said, dreams getting closer, not actually realised

A nanoscale printer sound really awesome

[OhANameWhatName]

But I'm certain I'd lose it.

Re:A nanoscale printer sound really awesome

[Opportunist]

No worries there, you know how printers are today. They're cheap, just the refills cost an arm and a leg.

Re:A nanoscale printer sound really awesome

[Jeff Carr]

I'm printing the world's smallest violin for you.

Re:A buggy proposition.

[Immerman]

Well, we've got a long way to go between printed nanoscale tchotchke and something functional, but yeah, it does seem like a big step in that direction. I've seen some rather sophisticated fully functional planetary gear assemblies and such printed all at once on a makerbot, and while it took a lot of trimming to get it working properly I suspect such a thing would be far easier and cleaner to do in a precision instrument like this, especially since (I believe) the polymerization process used means that the printed structure is basically suspended in a neutral buoyancy tank during the process, allowing for far less supporting structure that will need to be removed afterwards. And once we can print a fully articulated micro-scale robot, well then all we'll need is the ability to add motors, sensors, batteries, and a CPU...

Hmm, okay, so still maybe a ways off. Still, researchers have managed to harness bacteria for propulsion, and a syrup reservoir would make a good nanoscale fuel tank for those. Sensors could be a bit of a challenge, or maybe not - I don't know the state of the art on that front, but for a CPU a nervous-net based architecture could potentially manage quite sophisticated behavior using only a handful of transistors and very primitive sensors, even if we would have to control it more like a remote control cockroach/rat/etc. than a deterministic robot.

Interesting times...

Atom Ant Figurines

[TuxWithoutPants]

Just got real.

This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[asm2750]

Right now it can take weeks to make complete microchip with the current fabrication methods. The fabrication size of this printer isn't that great however since most of what is seen in the TFA looks to be around 100 nanometers compared to the 28 nanometers a modern fab can make. However, it would be great to have for rapid prototypes of processors or be used to make devices that fabricate well at large sizes like flash memory.

This printer would work extremely well for MEMS devices since the complex structures such sensors can now just be printed rather than deposited and etched over and over again in a microchip fab.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea WHY microchips take so long to build?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NGFhc8R_uO4

Even if you can magically make chemicals not react while they patiently wait to be positioned atom by atom, how the hell will you prevent household dust and vibrations from messing up the accuracy? Do we have any idea of what this machine needs as physical support? Like a giant cement floor or vibration-damping structure?

You got that in your living room?

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[viperidaenz]

Who said anything about a living room?

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[tsa]

This thing can only print certain materials so I'm not sure it works for electronics. And the resolution is 30 nm according to the Technology World article. The press release doesn't say anything about the resolution though.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[asm2750]

AC one of my areas of focus in my MSEE degree program was semiconductors and their fabrication. Yes it can take weeks for a microchip to be grown, etched, deposited, cut and packaged (typically around 3 weeks or more depending on how complex the node size and chip is). Also the machines used for exposing the design pattern to the wafer has to be dead on otherwise the chips made on the wafer will not work. A rapid prototyper such as this printer for chips would still need to be in a fab like environment turbo molecular pumps, and all.

Also, I didn't say anything about putting a device such as this in a normal household that would be costly, and a waste of money (it would be pretty cool however if it worked well).

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[stenvar]

Nonsense. E-beam and ion beam lithography are already standard. They're a lot easier to control and use than mask-based lithography and work in a normal lab. They just are no good for mass production, and they are expensive because there isn't a lot of demand for them.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[MattskEE]

This printer would work extremely well for MEMS devices since the complex structures such sensors can now just be printed rather than deposited and etched over and over again in a microchip fab.

I'm not sure how printing MEMs devices serially is going to be faster than parallel mass production on 12" or 18" silicon wafers. Printing them is analogous to laboriously machining a part in a CNC mill compared to stamping in a forge. Photolithography and etching are pretty fast processes. Well, etching can be slow but it can be done very well in parallel to multiple large wafers at once so per-device it's fast. Doing the printing as a prototype for a standard MEMs process production run won't work well since the material properties would be different.

And you still need to connect your MEMs devices to a circuit, so now you have to do a tricky hybrid integration process to pick up your tiny polymer MEMs devices and connect them to a chip and package your now non-planar device. Plus you need to be able to selectively metallize some of your surface for many MEMs applications - not sure how you do that given that stereolithography "printing" works on photohardening polymers not metals.

Right now it can take weeks to make complete microchip with the current fabrication methods. The fabrication size of this printer isn't that great however since most of what is seen in the TFA looks to be around 100 nanometers compared to the 28 nanometers a modern fab can make. However, it would be great to have for rapid prototypes of processors or be used to make devices that fabricate well at large sizes like flash memory.

It's a big leap going from hardening a polymer to printing full complex semiconductor circuits with dielectrics and metal interconnect. Unless you're just thinking of using this stereolithography process to replace the standard mask-based planar photolithography in the foundry, which might be a valid point if the stereolithography is faster or cheaper than electron-beam lithography or ordering a mask of the dimensions that this machine is actually capable of. Right now e-beam lithography can do this but it's slow and expensive.

For something like this to be applied to semiconductor processing another thought would be construction of stamps for nano-imprint lithography. Printing them might be cheaper or faster than the standard techniques of e-beam or optical lithography and etching at least for short runs.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[SoulNibbler]

Well that and they are serial and thus slow. (Yes I know about the parralell methods for both E-beam and Ion beam [also ion-beam litho, not direct write maybe for making nano-imprint-masks]) So the reason they are expensive (they aren't: E-beam is way cheap for the resolution, its just you'd never want to wait for even a single layer of a real device with E-beam litho on a production scale) is that you need lots of them to get anywhere near the throughput you get with photo-lithography.

Sure this technique might be a neat way to make nano-imprint masks, but then again 30nm isn't all that sexy.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[stenvar]

Well that and they are serial and thus slow.

No "and". They aren't good for mass production because they are slow; that's pretty much the only disadvantage they have.

Sure this technique might be a neat way to make nano-imprint masks, but then again 30nm isn't all that sexy.

The technique hasn't been tuned as much as standard lithography. And you can get smaller features with ion beam lithography already. People may just not be able to make light-based lithography work at smaller feature sizes and we'll be forced to switch.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[mr_mischief]

30nm would be awesome for prototypes and low-count manufacture. Hell, 32nm was the limit of photolithography not too many years ago. Not that it'd be as easily done as said, but if you could build 30nm or even 60nm node one-off chips in an industrial design office or university lab that'd be plenty small enough.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[SoulNibbler]

depends on what you mean by smaller features. With 30keV Ga ions on Si the effective range is on the order of 27nm which basically limits your z resolution to something around 30nm, You can do a bit better with lateral resolution, FEI claims something on the range to sub 10s of nm, but I'm really having difficulty with the choice of the term lithography.

Lithography usually refers to some sort of masking procedure but the real advantage of ion beam is that you can do deposition and milling. You can do similar things with electron beams but its usually referred to as electron beam gas deposition or etching. E-beam lithography usually refers to using photons generated when the electron beam hits the resist to induce a chemical change in the resist which is then developed similarly to standard photo-lithography.

So while you could use a FIB to activate your resist... I don't really see why you would as the resolution is crap compared to a good electron beam. If you aren't using a resist in your so called ion beam lithography then I need some more explanation as to what you mean by ion beam lithography.

A small disclaimer: my PhD research is in the simulation of FIB milling.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[SoulNibbler]

Sorry, I went all internet tough guy back there...
I should clarify what I meant.
1st: E-beam lithography as I know it; with an E-beam resist is pretty much the creme of the crop if you want ultra high resolution. It is also a very old technique IE they were looking at it to replace photo-lithography as far back as the '80s but there are difficulties with making a bright electron beam to do the lithography in a parallel manner. Therefore its been used serially with a beam rastering the resist to make the desired patterns. With this techniques you can make very small features.

2nd: I am un-aware (doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that its outside of my research area) of any analogous ion beam processes; in that we are talking about using a polymer resist activated by an ion beam. There are however very interesting nano patterning methods that use implanted ions either in a sacrificial layer or in the substrate itself, followed by selective etching that could arguably be thought of as ion-beam lithography.

3rd: Focused Ion Beams (FIB) is a rather mature technique for circuit repair and editing because it acts as both and additive and a subtractive process. With the FIB we can make deep holes using gas assisted etching, and then deposit with gas deposition both conductors and insulators. The real advantage of this technique is that we can see what we are doing!! Imaging can be done either with the ion beam or a separate electron beam allowing us to see the structures we are working on with the same or better resolution than we can write or etch with. Normally however FIBs use Gallium (Ga) ions as they are a convenient ion source (the melting point is low and the vapor pressure is also low) these ions are rather heavy and cause damage to the substrate (this can be mitigated through careful selection of the beam energy and angle), Ga also acts as a dopant in silicon.

4th: There was a company that tried to deal with the serial nature of focused ion beam milling. This company developed a 1024 beam array where each beam could be individually steered or turned on or off using a selector plate made with standard Si manufacturing techniques. This device used Argon (Ar) ions to avoid doping. Sadly it seems this company has stopped developing this device. They might be entering with a similar setup for electron beams in the future. My understanding is that the ion beam device worked best for gas-assisted processes where the deposition or etching gas is activated by secondary electrons freed when the ion hits the target. Seeing as an electron beam also free secondary electrons I think they changed directions to an electron only technique but these are only rumors I've heard around work.

Both Ion beam and electron beam techniques are more difficult than they appear as the yield (either sputtering or secondary electron) is dependent upon the incidence angle between the beam and the surface. It therefore becomes much more difficult to predict the interactions once the surface is no longer planar.

My comment about the 30nm not being all that sexy was with respect to TFA, I saw this on FEI's facebook page a couple of weeks ago and thought the same thing. Yes its neat that they can make shapes at this size with good control (heaven knows we can't do it yet with electron deposition or fib deposition [we can make cute test cases but we are far from arbitrary shapes even though we can do overhangs already]), but for me the real limitation is that they seem quite limited with respect to the materials that they can make things out of. I'm sure this is a great thing and we will see some neat tricks in the future with people either using these printed structures at templates for some nano imprint lithography, or as high tech resist with some neat deposition into the voids. My real problem with TFA is that they are using polymers and I don't like polymers.

So anyway, yes we can make feature sizes less than 30nm with both electron beams and ion beams; however we are still a long way away from being able

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[stenvar]

Large scale E-beam is hard! If we wanted to replace photo-lithography with E-beam lithography we would need much brighter sources and much more sensitive resists.

Or we simply need to get the cost down to the point that they become as ubiquitous as printers (and soon 3D printers). With millions of such devices around, it wouldn't matter if it took it a few days to produce a complex chip.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[SoulNibbler]

except that E-beam lithography is in effect lithography, the following steps are harder and require lots of infrastructure.
Here is a typical process for getting a single layer into a chip.
Step 1: Clean the substrate of any organics.
Step 2: Apply resist (usually using a spin on process)
Step 3: Expose resist (E-beam -- Photolithography it doesn't matter). The hard part here is exposing in the correct places.
Step 4: Develop resist, usually wet chemistry which will remove or leave only the areas exposed in the previous step.
Step 5: Use the patterns made with the resist (Deposition, Etching, or Implantation)
Step 6: Remove the exposed resist, usually a different wet chemistry.

Then remember that you are going to do this entire process numerous times ( A simple P-MOS needs 4+ cycles without considering metalization). It also HAS to be done in a clean room if you want ANY flexibility as you have to switch the substrate between different machines for each step.

If we decide to go at it like 3D printers where one machine does every step (implantation is still kinda difficult but it could be done with a FIB) then we need to be able to predict exactly what the beam will do which we can't do yet. We are working on learning how to do that but we are not there yet. If we had all the knowledge to be able to build chips like a 3D printer I'm still not so sure we would as the general case since the batch process mentioned above is very cheap (per device). Then again I would not have expected the 3D printer movement to have taken off so quickly, so it could happen.

The costs are already coming down quickly, there are desktop SEMs that cost less than an expensive SUV, the gas injection systems are nothing more than capilarry tubes and solenoids (neglecting that most of the deposition gasses are wicked toxic and may explode if they contact air) so I would argue that the tools are already very much on thier way to being cheaper. The problem is we really don't have any systematic approach to using them to do what I think you are suggesting.

Re:This could be a boon to semiconductors and MEMS

[stenvar]

except that E-beam lithography is in effect lithography,

Don't be so hung up on "lithography"; I didn't actually use the term myself. And, in fact, I think large scale, low-cost VLSI manufacturing will likely be based on a combination of self-assembly and AFM technologies, which people already know how to parallelize.

Re:Awesome

[Fluffeh]

Your best results would probably be using graphene, but good luck pirnting that :)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/usa-desalination-idUSL1N0C0DG520130313

30nm?

[viperidaenz]

Can I print a chip with this? Chris Gammell will buy one if it can.

Fly on the wall...

[Dan East]

Board to engineer: We're excited to see the first demonstration of our new 3D printer! Let's see what you've got...
Engineer to board: I've got good news and not so good news. The good news is the printer is working great, and I've brought several printed objects for you to take a look at.
Board member: What's the bad news? Production costs are higher than estimated?
Engineer: Well, not really. We have a scale problem. Unfortunately, the intern that exported the CAD blueprints to the machinists wasn't used to the software, and the exported design was 1/10th the scale it should have been. We didn't notice the problem until the molds were already created to mass produce the printer.
Board members look at one another in alarm and begin murmuring to one another.
Engineer: However, there's an upside - we can now make really tiny things with ten times the precision! It's a "NANO" printer! You will find sample objects already located on the center of the table. I just hope no one has sneezed.
Board members lean forward, squinting and looking at various objects the size of grains of salt.
Board member: Oh, that's what those things are. I was about to have the cleaning lady fired.
Engineer: I hope this doesn't mean we lose or bonus? We did meet the deadline after all.
Board member, picks up something off the table, then holding fingers together next to his head, rubs them back and forth.
Engineer: What's that supposed to mean?
Board member: I'm just playing the world's smallest violin, which just happened to have been printed on our newest 3D printer.

The empire state building?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this? An empire state building for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read... if they can't even fit inside the building?

This needs to be... at least three times bigger!

Re:The empire state building?

[voidphoenix]

lol +1 for Zoolander reference :)

Re:Awesome

[JWSmythe]

If I worked there, that'd definitely be the first thing I'd print. After that it would have to be something porn related.

I guess that's why I don't work there.

Spaceship

[metalmonkey]

When reading the summary I thought - it would take a very long while to print a spaceship nano particle at a time (or micro particle as it turns out).
Only on reading the article did it clarify its a 'model' spaceship.

The SI needs to reclaim its prefixes

[rossdee]

micro is 10 to the minus 6 (1 millionth)
nano is 10 to the minus 9 (1 billionth)

So a nanoscale printer should have a resolution of 1 nanometre
A metre is the standard unit of length
A meter is a device for measuring something eg thermometer

Re:The SI needs to reclaim its prefixes

[voidphoenix]

"scale" isn't an SI unit. Nanotechnology is defined as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers. 30nm resolution is nanoscale.

0.003"

[Anonymous Coward]

Three lousy thou? I could hit sizes of one thou (0.001") easily when I was first learning to machine (manually).

Could this thing (reasonably) print a mechanical

[postofreason]

Could this thing (reasonably) print a mechanical computer a la Babbage? Not a joke question. Would it be possible to power it? Could frictional problem be (reasonably easily) addressed?

The real point

[Grayhand]

This isn't about printing nano scale action figures it's about making nano scale prototype parts. It may not be true nano scale printing as some point out but it's close and still printing on a scale which would require extremely expensive hardware. A few years ago there was no such things as 3D printing and now they are printing at several thousandth scale. How long until they are printing based on individual atoms?

Okay, that's great. Now scale it.

[mark-t]

Because the biggest problem with existing 3d printers, IMO, was lack of precision. Combine this precision with large-scale 3d printing, and you'll be able to print up extremely precise components whose measurements matter almost to the micron.

Re:Okay, that's great. Now scale it.

[Opportunist]

You're barking up the wrong tree. Getting to this precision isn't the problem with "normal scale" prototyping. That could be accomplished long before the advent of 3D printing, and high precision prototypes are not really the area where 3D printers are used. At least not the consumer grade models that most people know about.

3D printing was and is about is to make the whole deal cheap. To give everyone access to the ability to produce plastic prototypes that doesn't involve a process that resembles playing with very expensive Play-Doh.

This thing is a completely different beast altogether. From the looks of it alone you can easily tell that "cheap" wasn't really one of the corner stones this project rested on. Building really tiny things was.

I'll believe it when I see it...

[mutube]

...Doh!!!

Military applications

[Natales]

Even if it's not true "nano" scale, this technology could potentially enable the creation of micro drones the size of a mosquito. Imagine the potential...

Great...

[Lorem_Ipsum]

tchotkes that will set off your hay fever. Can't wait.

Re:Okay, that's great. Now scale it.

[mark-t]

I would suggest that the single biggest reason that 3d printers aren't used in the area of high precision prototypes may only be because their resolution hasn't been good enough.

It's too bad this isn't likely to be particular cheap, like contemporary home 3d printing is.

One application that I can easily imagine high precision consumer 3d printing being used for includes creating very precisely detailed miniatures (typically where the fineness of detail serves some aesthetic interest, particularly when the miniature is examined very closely), or one specific but perhaps slightly whimsical application would be to print custom pieces that interconnect well with LEGO (where again, existing 3d printing tolerances are far too large for current home-printed pieces to fit well).

Re:Okay, that's great. Now scale it.

[Opportunist]

There are high quality, high detail and high precision 3D printing options very available. They're far from the hobbyist 3D printers that you may have at home, though. There isn't just one way to 3D print, just like with normal printers there are various ways how material is formed, and all those methods have their advantages and shortcomings. Extrusion (the currently probably most common hobbyist method) is fairly cheap but it's quite inaccurate and has troubles with overhanging structures. GMP allows any kind of structure, but tends to be quite expensive and slow. And afaik there is not really a hobbyist variant of STL available yet, but what I know about it is that it burns your wallet both for the tool and the materials, not to mention its molasses speed (no pun intended).

So you see, if you REALLY want things 3D printed with high accuracy, it is quite possible, but for most applications when you have the money to get into the high precision areas of 3D printing you also have other options available to you that produce more durable or faster results.