ABSTRACT
Nanofabrication can be loosely divided into four major areas: thin films, lithography, etching, and metrology. The importance of understanding the tools and techniques and their limitations can be illustrated through an ordinary example of designing a part for machining. Manmade nanotechnology has been around for centuries. The different colors in stained glass windows were created by impregnating the glass with different-sized gold nanoparticles. Nanofabrication is difficult to summarize and deliver in a single course because it actually contains several large disciplines. Lithography, thin films, pattern transfer and metrology can be loosely defined as the major categories of nanofabrication. Inspection and characterization is another major area known as “metrology.” The components that we fabricate are often too small to accurately examine with an optical microscope. The properties of a cleanroom differ depending on the industry, such as pharmaceutical, semiconductor device fabrication, biotechnology, space technology, or a myriad of other industries.
