Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Over the last 2 years, researchers from the Information Engineering Research Center (CEGI) at Université de Sherbrooke have developed a radically new approach for the fabrication of single electron devices (SED). This approach has extended the use of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) used in CMOS circuit manufacturing to fabricate ultra small tunnel junctions which are the basic building blocks of SED. This nanodamascene process has allowed the fabrication of single electron transistors (SET) with extraordinarily small capacitances, leading to reliable operation at 100°C above room temperature. The proposed equipment will support research programs in nanoelectronics, in superconductor electronics and in heterogeneous integration for planar optoelectronics. These research programs are focused on: 1) D. Drouin and J. Beauvais: Non-volatile memory fabrication using nano-floating gates attached to SET to develop a universal computer memory which combines in a single device the characteristic of fast DRAM, high storage capacity of hard-disk and the retention time of flash memory. 2) D. Drouin: Heterogeneous integration of SET and CMOS technology to increase the overall performance of digital-analog applications by reducing the energy consumption, increasing the integration density and increasing the speed. 3) S. Charlebois: New nanoscale Josephson junctions to enable ultra-small Nb based junctions for quantum computing applications and to increase the operation frequency (~500GHz) of superconducting digital electronic circuits. 4) V. Aimez: Heterogeneous integration processes for planar optoelectronics to reduced costs (due to material usage) and increase function efficiency (decreased insertion losses, absorption and dispersion). The equipment requested consists of a fully automated CMP tool which will lead to major improvements in the nanodamascene process research project by providing better uniformity and in-process control on layer removal. A central reason for the need of increased process stability is to enable the fabrication of complex circuits comprising many nanodevices with designed properties.