Protein Crystals as Patterning Elements for Nanostructured Optoelectronic Materials

We propose to develop a new technology for the parallel nanostructuring of optoelectronic materials. It calls for the molecular self-assembly of protein masks on a surface which has been primed with SAMs (self-assembled monolayers) which themselves have been modified, in a parallel process, by deep UV radiation. After the protein masks have been self-assembled, the process of "parallel nanometer molecular lithography" provides an entirely parallel methodology for the transfer of the nanometer-scale pattern of the mask to the substrate surface. The subsequent application of LE4 (low energy electron enhanced etching) to impress a deeper nanostructuring into the substrate material is a parallel process as well. The successful demonstration of electroluminescence from quantum dot arrays of crystalline silicon nanofabricated by the proposed techniques would provide the first advanced-concept material derived from this highly innovative approach.