Organic Materials for Microelectronics: Polymer Synthesis, Block Copolymers, Photoresists, Photochemistry

Our research projects are chosen to provide students with an interesting, challenging, and important interdisciplinary problem that will produce new and useful knowledge. The projects are designed to provide a framework in which graduate students learn to design and carry out experiments and to report the results of their work in written and oral form. Our group webpage is the best source of detailed information about the research group and current projects. The focus of the activity is the synthesis of new organic materials with properties that are valuable for engineering applications.

Representative Publications

Meghali J. Chopra; Rahul Verma; Austin Lane; C. G. Willson; Roger T. Bonnecaze “A Method to Accelerate Creation of Plasma Etch Recipes using Physics and Bayesian Statistics,” Proc. SPIE 10149, Advanced Etch Technology for Nanopatterning VI, 101490X (March 21, 2017).

Mesch, Ryan; Wang, Wade; Kawakami, Takanori; Hagiwara, Yuji; Dick, Andrew; Okazaki, Masahiro; Gu, Xinyu; Li, Yongjun; Jockusch, Steffen; Turro, Nicholas; Blackwell, James; Bristol, Robert; Wallraff, Gregory; Troung, Hoa; Willson, C. Grant “On Breaking Raleigh’s Rule,” ACS Nano (submitted 2017).

Wang, Xiaohan; Dolocan, Andrei; Chou, Harry; Tao, Li; Dick, Andrew; Akinwande, Deji; Willson, C. Grant “Direct Observation of Poly(Methyl Methacrylate) Removal from a Graphene Surface,” Chemistry of Materials, 29(5), 2033-2039 (2017).

Chan, Warren W. C.; Manish Chhowalla, Sharon Glotzer, Yury Gogotsi, Jason H. Hafner, Paula T. Hammond, Mark C. Hersam, Ali Javey, Cherie R. Kagan, Ali Khademhosseini, Nicholas A. Kotov, Shuit-Tong Lee, Yan Li, Helmuth Möhwald, Paul A. Mulvaney, Andre E. Nel, Peter J. Nordlander, Wolfgang J. Parak, Reginald M. Penner, Andrey L. Rogach, Raymond E. Schaak,

Molly M. Stevens, Andrew T. S. Wee, C. Grant Willson, Laura E. Fernandez, Paul S. Weiss

“Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Impacting Diverse Fields of Science, Engineering, and Medicine,” ACS Nano 10(12) 10615-10617 (2016).

Michael J. Maher, Jeffrey L. Self, Pawer, Stasiak, Gregory Blachut, Christopher J. Ellison, Mark W. Matsen, Christopher M. Bates, and C. Grant Willson “Structure, Stability, and Reorganization of 0.5 L₀ Topography in Block Copolymer Thin Films,” ACS Nano, 10 (11), 10152–10160 (2016).

Daniel F. Sunday, Michael Maher, Summer Tein, Matthew C. Carlson, Christopher J. Ellison, C. Grant Willson, and R. Joseph Kline “Quantifying the Interface Energy of Block Copolymer Top Coats,” ACS Macro Lett., 5 (12), 1306–1311 (2016).

Sunshine X. Zhou, Dustin W. Janes, Chae Bin Kim, C. Grant Willson, and Christopher J. Ellison “Designing Intrablock Attractions To Increase the χ Parameter of a Symmetric Diblock Copolymer,” Macromolecules, 49 (21), 8332–8340 (2016).

Gregory Blachut, Stephen M. Sirard, Michael J. Maher, Yusuke Asano, Yasunobu Someya, Austin P. Lane, William J. Durand, Christopher M. Bates, Andrew M. Dinhobl, Roel Gronheid, Diane Hymes, Christopher J. Ellison, and C. Grant Willson “A Hybrid Chemo-/Grapho-Epitaxial Alignment Strategy for Defect Reduction in Sub-10 nm Directed Self-Assembly of Silicon-Containing Block Copolymers,” Chem. Mater., 28 (24), 8951–8961 (2016).

Cherie R. Kagan, Laura E. Fernandez, Yury Gogotsi, Paula T. Hammond, Mark C. Hersam, André E. Nel, Reginald M. Penner, C. Grant Willson, and Paul S. Weiss “Nano Day: Celebrating the Next Decade of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology,” ACS Nano, 10 (10), 9093–9103 (2016).

Dick, Andrew R.; William K. Bell, Brendan Luke, Erin Maines, Brennen Mueller, Brandon Rawlings, Paul A. Kohl, C. Grant Willson “High aspect ratio patterning of photosensitive polyimide with low thermal expansion coefficient and low dielectric constant,” J. Micro/Nanolith, 15(3), (July 26, 2016).                                

Yasunobu Someya, Yusuke Asano, Michael J. Maher, Gregory Blachut, Austin P. Lane, Stephen Sirard, Christopher J. Ellison, C. Grant Willson “Synthesis and Characterization of Si-containing Block Co-polymers with Resolution beyond 10 nm,” Journal of Photopolymer Science and Technology, 29(5), 701-704 (2016).

Seung Ryul Na; Xiaohan Wang, Richard D. Piner, Rui Huang, C. Grant Willson, and Kenneth M. Liechti “Cracking of Polycrystalline Graphene on Copper under Tension,” ACS Nano, 10 (10), 9616–9625 (2016).

Laurent Azarnouche, Stephen M. Sirard, William J. Durand, Gregory Blachut, Emir Gurer, Diane J. Hymes, Christopher J. Ellison, Carlton G. Willson and David B. Graves “Plasma and photon interactions with organosilicon polymers for directed self-assembly patterning applications,” J. Vac. Sci. Technol., B 34, 061602 (2016).

Hayes, Colin O., Peng-hao Chen, R. Paxton Thedford, Christopher J. Ellison, Guangbin Dong, and C. Grant Willson “Effect of Ring Functionalization on the Reaction Temperature of Benzocyclobutene Thermoset Polymers.” Macromolecules, 49 (10), 3706–3715 (2016).

Sirard, Stephen, Laurent Aza, William Durand, Michael Maher, Kazunori Mori, Gregory Blachut, Dustin Janes, Yusuke Asano, Yasunobu Someya, Diane Hymes, David Graves, Chris Ellison and Grant Willson “Plasma Etch of Block Copolymers for Lithography.” SPIE 15 April 2 (2016).

Tsai, Hsinyu, Hiroyuki Miyazoe, Ankit Vora, Teddie Magbitang, Noel Arellano, Chi-Chun Liu, Michael J. Maher, William J. Durand, Simon J. Dawes, James J. Bucchignano, Lynne Gignac, Daniel P. Sanders, Eric A. Joseph, Matthew E. Colburn, C. Grant Willson, Christopher J. Ellison, Michael A. Guillorn “High chi block copolymer DSA to improve pattern quality for FinFET device fabrication.” SPIE Advanced Lithography. International Society for Optics and Photonics 9779, March 25 (2016).

Stephen Sirard, Laurent Azarnouche, Emir Gurer, William Durand, Michael Maher, Kazunori Mori, Gregory Blachut, Dustin Janes, Yusuke Asano, Yasunobu Someya, Diane Hymes, David Graves, Christopher J. Ellison, C. Grant Willson “Interactions between plasma and block copolymers used in directed self-assembly patterning.” SPIE Advanced Lithography. International Society for Optics and Photonics (2016).

Austin P. Lane, Michael J. Maher, C. Grant Willson, and Christopher J. Ellison “Photopatterning of Block Copolymer Thin Films.” ACS Macro Letters 5(4) 460-465 (2016).

Maher, Michael J., Kazunori Mori, Stephen M. Sirard, Andrew M. Dinhobl, Christopher M. Bates, Emir Gurer, Gregory Blachut, Austin P. Lane, William J. Durand, Matthew C. Carlson, Jeffrey R. Strahan, Christopher J. Ellison, and C. Grant Willson “Pattern Transfer of Sub-10 nm Features via Tin-Containing Block Copolymers.” ACS Macro Letters 5(3) 391-395 (2016).

Sunday, Daniel, Maher, Michael, Blachut, Gregory, Asano, Yusuke, Tein, Summer, Willson, C. Grant, Ellison, Christopher, Kline, R. Joseph “Characterizing the interfaces of block copolymers with high chi.” APS Meeting Abstracts (March, 2016).

Wang, Xiaohan, Chou, Harry, Tao, Li, Dick, Andrew, Dolocan, Andrei, Akinwande, Deji, Willson, C. Grant “Direct observation of PMMA removal from graphene surface.” APS Meeting Abstracts (March, 2016). 

• ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry, 2018
• Billy and Claude R. Hocott Distinguished Centennial Engineering Research Award, 2017
• Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award, 2016
• SIA Researcher Award, 2015
• Japan Prize, 2013
• Inventor of the Year, The University of Texas at Austin, 2012
• Fellow, Materials Research Society, 2012
• Inaugaual Fellow of the American Chemical Society, 2009
• ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science, 2004
• Gordon E. Moore Medal, 2009
• National Medal of Technology and Innovation, 2007
• SEMI North America Award, 2007
• Elected SPIE Fellow, 2007
• TeaChE 2006 Teaching Excellence Award in Chemical Engineering, 2006
• AIChE Arthur Dehon Little Award for Chemical Engineering Innovation, 2005
• ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award, 2005
• SPIE Frits Zernike Award, 2005