Deterministic nanowire fanout and interconnect without any critical translational alignment

Abstract

Interfacing the nanoworld with the microworld represents a critical challenge to fully integrated nanosystems. Solutions to this problem have generally required either nanoprecision alignment or stochastic assembly. A design is presented that allows complete and deterministic fanout of regular arrays of wires from the nano- to the microworld without the need for any critical translational alignment steps. For example, deterministically connecting 10-nm wires directly to 3-mum wires would require a translational alignment to within only about 6 mum. The design also allows for nanowire interconnect and is independent of the technology used to fabricate the nanowires, enabling technologies for which alignment remains very challenging. The impact of potential fabrication errors is analyzed and a structure is fabricated that demonstrates the feasibility of such a design