Obama’s Technion Gift | PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2015

obamarock — The replicas were chiseled on a gold-coated silicon chip on an area 0.04mm2 by 0.00002mm, using a focused beam of gallium ions. The chip is affixed to a Jerusalem stone dating to the Second Temple period (1st century BCE to 1st century CE), used to seal clay vessels.

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In honor of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel, replicas of the Declarations of Independence of the United States of America and the State of Israel were inscribed side by side on a nano-chip by scientists from the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute.

Mr. Obama, speaking after a meeting with Israel’s President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on March 20th 2013, thanked his host for planting “seeds” of progress, security, and peace, and lauded the president for being a “wise” and “thoughtful partner.” President Peres stood powerfully behind the Technion’s initial structured steps into research in nano science and technology through the establishment of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute.

The inscriptions on the unique Israeli gift to the US President measure a grand total of 0.04 square millimeters, and run 20 nanometers, or 0.00002 mm, deep.

The chip itself has been elegantly set on a 2000 year old Jerusalem stone dating back to the Second Temple Period (1st century BCE to 1st century CE).

The imprint of the Declarations of Independence was made by accelerating charged atoms, called ions, and bombarding them at various points on the surface of the chip. When an ion beam hits the chip it creates a tiny recess, in this case 20 nanometers deep. The preparation process took about a week, but the actual engraving took less than an hour. The final image etched into the chip is made up of over a million dots.

Embedded in the unique gift from Technion scientists is another promise. Following Technion’s successful bid together with its partner Cornell University to establish the Technion Cornell Innovation Institute (TCII) in New York City, the future of dynamic scientific and technological cooperation between the US and Israel in areas ranging from Nano technology, to cleantech through to health and computer science looks full of promise.

Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute research and education, at the finest frontiers of science in medicine, biotechnology, environmental and energy research, is the kind of educational endeavor that the President has long endorsed as the generator of the seed of innovation, progress, a strong Israel, and a peaceful region that can develop out of that. Joint nanoscience research projects with Israel and its immediate neighbors have been active for some time, either quietly or publicly, including in the fields of photosynthesis and life science, investigation of the nano dynamics of the HIV virus, and a powerful patented group of sensors for sniffing out cancer and other diseases. Such seeds, on the nano dimension, reflected in the historic Technion-created gift of the nanoscale declaration of independence to US President Obama, reflect the seeds of hope and progress for the entire region.

The power of the Focused ion beam, also known as FIB, is at the cutting edge of the global semiconductor industry, materials science and increasingly in the biological field for site-specific analysis, deposition, and ablation of materials. Working with ease in the nano dimension, the FIB scientific system resembles a scanning electron microscope (SEM). However, while the SEM uses a focused beam of electrons to image the sample in the chamber, the FIB setup at Technion uses a focused beam of ions instead. FIB can also be incorporated in a system with both electron and ion beam columns, allowing the same feature to be investigated using either of the beams. FIB should not be confused with using a beam of focused ions for direct write lithography (such as in proton beam writing). These are generally quite different systems where the material is modified by other mechanisms.

Used by Technion multidisciplinary researchers, students and industry, the FIB is part of the impressive orchestra of infrastructure for research in nano science and technology assembled by Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI).

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FIB gifts: from the Vatican to the White House

This is not the first Technion NANO gift to pass from the State of Israel to a world leader. In 2007, the entire Hebrew bible was inscribed on a chip the size of a pinhead to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI on his historic visit to Jerusalem. It is now on display at the Vatican.

The idea to write the complete Hebrew bible on such a tiny surface was conceived by Technion Professor Uri Sivan of the Faculty of Physics, who is also an initiator and founder of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute. The text was written using the focused ion beam (FIB) generator that shot tiny particles called Gallium ions onto a gold surface covering a base layer of silicon. In a process that can be likened to digging a hole in the earth using a water jet, the ion beam etched the surface of the gold layer, making the underlying silicon layer visible.

The actual “writing” of the full text took just 90 minutes. The computer program that guided the FIB, however, took more than three months.

“The nano-bible project demonstrates the miniaturization at our disposal,” said Sivan. “This research could lead to the creation of more advanced miniature structures — and imaging — on a nanometric scale, advances in storing information in very small spaces, and the use of DNA molecules to store information.”

The project was managed by graduate student Ohad Zohar and Dr. Alex Lahav, former head of the FIB laboratory in the Technion’s Wolfson Microelectronics Research and Teaching Center.

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Patented for the Semiconductor Industry

One Technion patent emerging from FIB expertise at Technion through the portals of T³ – the Technion Technology Transfer Office is a system for deep nanopatterning.

FIB etching techniques are used to manufacture optoelectronic devices and integrated circuits. The ion beam effects on the materials used in the semiconductor industry limits the technology. The beam tail causes material decomposition and thus the technology is applicable for wide structures only. However, the industry trend to reduce structure size dictates high aspect ratio – deep milling at narrow width and control on a nanometric scale of FIB processing. So far, no technology exists to answer these demands.

The new technology enables the production of structures with high aspect ratio on a nanometric scale. Materials decomposition is prevented using coating. The coating acts as a dynamic mask thus preventing materials decomposition exposed to the beam tail without interfering with the process. We use Titanium dioxide layer coating that acts as a saturated absorber. The high intensity center of the beam is not affected while the low intensity beam tail is absorbed. Thicker coating withstands longer milling time and enables reaching to higher depths.

Advantages include a high aspect ratio of depth versus width– at least 10; the Capability for fabrication of patterns less than 20nm wide; flexible implementation.

Applications include the creation of feature photonic structures such as DBRs and gratings; and a solution for silicon debug and repair in Si VLSI

For more information, contact: T3 – Technion Technology Transfer.