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Building transistors today is done with lithography, which is a “top-down” process that uses patterning to create the complex layers that make up the transistor structure. It’s a bit like exposing a negative on photographic paper to get the pattern you want and then using this pattern as a template to place each material – metal, insulator or semiconductor – in exactly the right location. This process has worked successfully since the 1950s, and our scientists have even demonstrated the first working test chips with features approaching 7 nanometers, the equivalent of placing more than 20 billion tiny switches on chips the size of a fingernail. But as we get to ever-smaller dimensions, new approaches to building nanoscale devices will be required.
Now imagine there is a scratch on the glass. Water droplets form on the scratch, because it is a good, low energy place for the water molecules to stick. We have now combined self-assembly – “make a hemispherical droplet on this surface” – with an imposed pattern – “make a droplet on this part of the surface by using carefully placed scratches.” The result is that we can build more complicated patterns. Flexible, customized patterns like this water example, but on the nanoscale, help us build integrated circuits.
