Chip production without friction

Introduction

Friction contributes to the global computer chip shortage: friction and wear limit the positioning accuracy and throughput in chip production. As future positioning requirements approach the atomic scale, contact, friction, and wear need to be understood at this scale to inspire new positioning solutions which are more urgently needed than ever before.

Project Focus

CHIPFRICTION will focus on a key interface in chip production: carbon-based material-on-silicon subjected to nanoslip in a hydrogen-rich environment.

Research Objectives

1. How nanoscale elasticity, plasticity, and adhesion control rough contact formation will be revealed by matching contact models to ground-breaking fluorescence microscopy contact observations.
2. How a local frictional stability criterion translates into the nanometre partial slip that characterizes the onset of multi-contact sliding will be modelled and observed through unique pre-sliding experiments.
3. The oxidation, interfacial bonding, and mechanical mechanisms that lead to wear of the carbon-based material will be exposed through a combination of environmental control, new nanowear visualization methods, and ex-situ XPS characterization.

Researcher Qualifications

I am uniquely suited to conduct this work because I have fuelled the development of these experimental techniques, and I have experience in conducting the associated physical modelling.

Scientific Challenge

Macroscopic friction emerges from generic physical ingredients such as elastic deformation of surface topography and shearing of interfacial covalent bonds. How friction emerges creates a scientific challenge with major impact: Friction is responsible for 25% of the world's energy consumption.

Approach to the Challenge

I will address this long-standing challenge by experimenting and modelling the complex interplay between contact mechanics, frictional slip, and wear of the specific interface. The transfer of new friction manipulation strategies for chip production without friction is facilitated by having an institutional link to the lithography industry.