Engineers at the University of California, Davis, have invented a superthin “nanoglue” that could be used in new-generation microchip fabrication.
“The material itself (say, semiconductor wafers) would break before the glue peels off,” said Tingrui Pan, professor of biomedical engineering. He and his fellow researchers have filed a provisional patent.
Conventional glues form a thick layer between two surfaces. Pan’s nanoglue, which conducts heat and can be printed, or applied, in patterns, forms a layer the thickness of only a few molecules.
The nanoglue is based on a transparent, flexible material called polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS, which, when peeled off a smooth surface usually leaves behind an ultrathin, sticky residue that researchers had mostly regarded as a nuisance.
Pan and his colleagues realized that this residue could instead be used as glue, and enhanced its bonding properties by treating the residue surface with oxygen.
The nanoglue could be used to stick silicon wafers into a stack to make new types of multilayered computer chips. Pan said he thinks it could also be used for home applications — for example, as double-sided tape or for sticking objects to tiles. The glue only works on smooth surfaces and can be removed with heat treatment.
 In this graphic, clockwise from top: the glue can be printed in a pattern on a surface, treated to make it sticky (red) and then a new layer stuck on top. The background is a patterned nanoglue on a surface. (Tingrui Pan / UC Davis photo) | The journal Advanced Materials published a paper on the work in December. Pan’s co-authors: graduate students Yuzhe Ding and Shaun Garland, postdoctoral researcher Michael Howland and Professor Alexander Revzin, all of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The National Science Foundation supported the work. Media contact(s):
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1 comment:
This work does not properly accredit to the true inventor of the technology. This publication should be retracted from publication and its, would-be, patent invalidated.
Tingrui Pan’s previous publication was retracted from as stated in the retraction section of onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.200890103/pdf, the following is stated:
Photopatternable Conductive PDMS Materials for Microfabrication
Hailin Cong, Tingrui Pan
Adv. Funct. Mater. 2008, 18, 1912.
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.200701437
This paper has been withdrawn at the request of the authors. Several passages in this paper improperly reused sections of a previously published paper (A. Bhagat, P. Jothimuthu, I. Papautsky, Lab Chip 2007, 7, 1192). The authors sincerely apologize to the authors of the previous paper as well as the editors, reviewers, and readers for any inconvenience.
Such prior behavior highlights the lack of integrity Tingrui Pan holds in treating intellectual property.
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