- Buyers Guide Researchers at MIT have found a new way of making
complex three-dimensional structures using self-assembling
polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions. The work
has the potential to usher in a new generation of microchips and
other devices made up of submicroscopic features. Although
similar self-assembling structures with very fine wires have
been produced before, this is the first time the structures have
been extended into three dimensions with different, independent
configurations on different layers, the researchers say. The
research is published this week in the journal Science. Caroline
Ross, the Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
at MIT, says there has been “a lot of interest” among
semiconductor researchers in finding ways to produce chip
features that are much narrower than the wavelength of light —
and hence narrower than what can be achieved using present
light-based fabrication systems. Self-assembly based on polymers
has been an active area of researc