Inside Front Cover: Homeotropic Alignment of Columnar Liquid Crystals in Open Films by Means of Surface Nanopatterning (Adv. Mater. 6/2007)

Columnar liquid crystals (LCs) are found to spontaneously form homeotropically‐aligned films when deposited on surfaces fabricated via friction transfer of polytetrafluoroethylene. The inside cover schematically shows the film structure of a phthalocyanine derivative together with the corresponding X‐ray diffraction pattern (inset). The results, reported on p. 815 by Dmitri Ivanov and co‐workers, indicate that not only are the columns homeotropically oriented but also that they form a single monodomain of macroscopic size. These findings can have an important impact for fabrication of LC‐based organic solar cells.     

Templated Self‐Assembly of Block Copolymers: Top‐Down Helps Bottom‐Up

One of the key challenges in nanotechnology is to control a self‐assembling system to create a specific structure. Self‐organizing block copolymers offer a rich variety of periodic nanoscale patterns, and researchers have succeeded in finding conditions that lead to very long range order of the domains. However, the array of microdomains typically still contains some uncontrolled defects and lacks global registration and orientation. Recent efforts in templated self‐assembly of block copolymers have demonstrated a promising route to control bottom‐up self‐organization processes through top‐down lithographic templates. The orientation and placement of block‐copolymer domains can be directed by topographically or chemically patterned templates. This templated self‐assembly method provides a path towards the rational design of hierarchical device structures with periodic features that cover several length scales.     

A novel silicide nanopatterning method for the fabrication of ultra-short channel Schottky-tunneling MOSFETs

A novel nanometer patterning technique was developed to pattern epitaxial CoSi₂ layers and to fabricate Schottky-tunneling MOSFETs. The nanopatterning method is based on the local oxidation of silicide layers. A feature size as small as 50 nm was obtained for 20 nm epitaxial CoSi₂ layers on Si(100) after patterning by local rapid thermal oxidation in dry oxygen. A Schottky-tunneling MOSFET with epitaxial CoSi₂ Schottky contacts at both the source and the drain was fabricated using this nanopatterning method to make the 100 nm gate. The device shows good I–V characteristics at 300 K.