In the past two months, West Lake University Qiu Min and his research team have successively published a series of research results in journals such as Nano Letters, Nanoscale, Applied Surface Science-on "ice sculptures" as small as micrometers or even nanometers. They are already at ease-from precise positioning to precise control of the engraving force, to the use of "ice sculpture" as the mold to make structures and processing devices, a set of "ice sculpture 2.0" three-dimensional micro-nano processing with the goal of "wafer in, device out" The prototype of the system is emerging.

In 2012, soon after Qiu Min returned to teach at the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology, he started the "Ice Carving" research project.After six years of hard work, he and his team turned "Ice Carving" from paper talk into reality,and completed the research and development of the first "Ice Carving" system in China.After coming to West Lake University, Qiu Min, with the support of the National   instrument development project (free application category), has made every effort to develop the more powerful "Ice Engraving System 2.0". They hope to change the cumbersome processing procedures of traditional electron beam lithography and create a whole-process integrated and automated micro-nano processing system—from ice gel formation to mold processing, material growth, and device performance characterization in one go.

Professor Zhou Lei, dean of the Department of Physics of Fudan University and an expert on metamaterials and metasurfaces, said that this work has important practical significance for the development of more integrated and functional optoelectronic devices. "Ice engraving can organically combine the superstructure surface of the optical front with the widely used optical fiber, which not only finds a suitable landing platform for the former, but also brings new vitality to the latter." He said.

Currently, there are only two laboratories doing ice carving in the world, one in China and one in Denmark. Obviously, this is not a popular research direction, and the research and development cycle is very long. It is difficult to publish articles on this topic quickly and obtain high citations.

"But this is an exciting new technology." Qiu Min said, "This kind of exploration may bring about great breakthroughs, or there may be nothing, but this is the meaning

and fun of basic research. "And when we enlarge our perspective to the background of Made in China, in the transition from a big manufacturing country to a strong manufacturing country, the exploration and innovation of ultra-precision machining represented by micro-nano processing is precisely the future of Made in China. .
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There is no doubt that the future research on "ice engraving" will focus on those areas that are beyond the reach of traditional "lithography" capabilities. Benefiting from the unique biocompatibility of water, it is expected that photonic waveguides or electronic circuits can be "ice carved" on biological samples. This will unprecedentedly improve the ability of human intervention in biological samples, and at the same time open up new interdisciplinary and research directions.

Information source: West Lake University SEMI

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