Development of novel Self-Aligned Molding Technology (SAMT) Technique for Imprinting fully 3D shaped Micro- and Nanoparticles

Micro- and Nanotechnology have attached increasing attention in science and engineering today. Especially nanoparticles display already a high potential in many application fields.

The properties of nanoparticles mostly differ from the properties of their bulk material. Specifically the size and material of nanoparticles have essential influence. State of the art research shows a high impact of the particles’ shape to the properties as well.

To produce large amounts of nanoparticles the bottom up technique of colloidal growth is a standard procedure. Thereby in most cases only spherical particle shapes can be implemented. The size distribution is more or less highly depending on the process and effort. Also the material diversity is limited with this kind of process.

However, nanoimprint technology is a new approach to reach high precision in size and shape as well as a high diversity of particle materials.

Nanoimprint is requires only a single time to define the structures into a master template. The high effort of repetitive conventional nanostructuring is substituted by a simple molding process using this template. Also large areas can be structured with small area stamps by step and repeat or roller imprint processes. Mostly a single two dimensional (2D) or three dimensional (3D) structured stamp is used for nanoimprint. For upgrading the structure diversity a dual mold process needs to be applied, which means a simultaneous imprint process with two stamps from two sides (“waffle iron principle”). However, this technique leads in general to higher complexity due to the requirements of precise alignment of the two stamps to each other. The smaller the structures are, the higher the alignment precision need to be. Therefore, further development of this technique seems not to be attractive, especially dealing with nanometer structures.

To reduce this requirements in precision the alternative principle of Self-Aligned NanoShaping (SANS) is being developed at INA and filed as patent. This novel technique allows a simultaneous molding from two sides in one imprint step with mechanical self-alignment of the structures. The unique SANS structure renders a sub-nanometer precise alignment redundant. Since the molding precision is already included in the functional SANS structure design. Therefore, SANS suits perfectly for continuous mass production and shows high promise for future economical applications.

Additional topics regarding to Functional 3D Particles: Magnetic nanoparticles (Prof. Ehresmann, Group of thin layers and synchrotron radiation, University of Kassel); Development of shape specific polymeric nanoparticles and study of their dispersion and toxicology after pulmonary application in murine lung (NanoImprint Pharmakon, NIP)

Selected Publicaitons:

M. Smolarczyk ; S. Reuter ; L. Jablonka ; H. Hillmer: Implementation of A Novel Self-Aligned NanoShaping (SANS) Technology to Fabricate 3D Nanoparticles. In: Technical Digest of 13th Int. Conf. Nanoimprint and Nanoprint Technology (NNT2014) (2014), 24A-7-4

S. Schudy ; M. A. Smolarcyk ; H. H. Hillmer ; N. Worapattrakul ; F. Pilger: Nano-Formgebungsstruktur. Patent: DE 102011054789 A1 (2011), WO 2013/060618 A1 (2011), EP 2771161 (2014).

Additional Information about Patent: http://www.gino-innovativ.de/de/patente.asp - Eintrag: TE_015[2012] 3D-Nanoabformung

Additional Publications of the Technological Electronics

Contact Persons: Uh-Myong Ha, Sabrina Reuter

In cooperation with Gino GmbH: http://www.gino-innovativ.de/