Static information storage and retrieval – Systems using particular element – Molecular or atomic
Patent
1998-10-05
2000-02-29
Nelms, David
Static information storage and retrieval
Systems using particular element
Molecular or atomic
G11C 1100
Patent
active
060317566
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a molecule that is able to adhere to surfaces of substrates in different conformations, a method of patterning layers of such molecules by switching them from one conformation into another, and to the usage of such patterned layers for lithography, data storage, and display technology.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The dramatic progress of computer technology over the past four decades has been fueled by an unparalleled development of the three basic hardware elements: storage devices, processors and displays. In all three areas, the art and science of surface structuring is of essential importance. The trends towards miniaturization and integration as well as towards improved performance. reliability, and productivity require increasingly better control of surfaces and interfaces down to the molecular or atomic level.
Today. design rules for integrated circuits and storage devices have become so small that some of the most important conventional structuring techniques got close to their principal limits. Standard optical lithography, for instance, is bound to dimensions larger than about one half wavelength which amounts to about 140 nm for uv radiation. The bitsize of CD-ROMs is limited to about 0.5 micron because present-day light-emitting diodes radiate red light with wavelengths of 800 to 1000 nm. Obviously, new techniques are needed in order to further reduce the design rules.
With regard to display technology, the trend towards flat panel designs generates an increasing need for large, matrix addressable arrays of pixel elements. Here, the technical problem is not miniaturization but energy efficiency. yield and cost. At present, liquid crystal displays (LCD) play the major role in flat-panel technology. The LCD cell changes its optical transmissivity by appropriate application of voltage. Excellent contrast is achieved if arrays of thin film transistors (TFT) turn on and off the individual LCD cells. This scheme however. is costly and TFT-LCDs are correspondingly expensive. Moreover, LCDs quite generally suffer from poor energy efficiency since they have to be illuminated by an external light source, the different colors resulting from filtering of white light. Because of these short-comings, the display industry is greatly interested in potential alternatives to the LCD technology.
Light-emitting diodes (LED) are much more energy efficient than LCDs but the presently available LEDs are too expensive for large-scale display panels. Present R&D activities in this field therefore concentrate in particular on organic LEDs (OLED) which hold promise for low-cost mass production. An overview about the design and properties of OLEDs can be found in the article by J. R. Sheats, H. Antoniadis, M. Hueschen, W. Leonard, J. Miller, R. Moon, D. Roitman, and A. Stocking "Organic Electroluminescent Devices" which appeared in Science Vol. 273, p. 884, 1996. In principle, OLEDs consist of layers of polymers sandwiched between a metallic and a transparent semiconducting electrode. The main short-coming of OLEDs is presently a short lifetime because of chemical interactions with the environment and degradation due to electron injection at too high energies, necessitated by a poor match of the electronic properties of the polymers with respect to the electrode materials.
It is possible, however, to influence the electron injection capability by modification of the molecules next to the electrode/polymer interface. A. Haran, D. H. Waldeck, R. Naaman, E. Moons and D. Cahen describe in "The Dependence of Electron Transfer Efficiency on the Conformational Order in Organic Monolayers", Science Vol. 263, pp. 948-950, 1994, for instance, the influence of a monolayer of octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) molecules on the electron transfer (ET) process from a silicon electrode into an aqueous electrolyte solution.
The OTS layer can be switched by heating from one conformation into another. The different conformations correspond to different geometries of a given molecule arising f
REFERENCES:
patent: 5623476 (1997-04-01), Eguchi et al.
patent: 5751629 (1998-05-01), Nova et al.
Gimzewski James K.
Jung Thomas
Schlittler Rato R.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Nelms David
Nguyen Vanthu
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