nanoparticles

[Yuan Zhang]

Dear community members,

Some students in our group are going to work with several kinds of 
nanoparticles. We are not sure if the materials or processes are safe 
enough to be allowed inside snf. Here are our processes.

1. FePt nanoparticles (3~4nm or 5~6nm in size)
     Purpose: make ohmic contact with nanoparticles in between metal and 
heavily doped Si
     Chemical include:  n.p. are in a oleylamine/oleic acid/hexane 
solution, where oleylamine/oleic acid act as surfactants that surround each 
nanoparticle
     Process: 1. HF clean Si surface
                   2. ion implantation to form n-type doped Si
                   3. dilute FePt solution by hexane and spin coat using 
headway
                   4. remove hexane using hot plate
                   5. remove oleic acid under Ne/vacuum heating, use blue oven
                   6. evaporate or sputter Al, use innotec or metalic
                   7. lithography: headway2, karlsuss/evaline, develop
                   8. etch Al

2. Au nanoparticles (~10nm in size)
     Purpose: form nice ordered Au nanoparticles on Si surface
     Chemical included: Au nanoparticles in PSP4VP/toluene solution
                                  PSP4VP: poly(styrene-b-4-vinylpyridine)
     Process: 1. clean the Si surface
                   2. spin coat the solution using headway
                   3. remove toluene by hot plate
                   4. remove polymer by annealing under Ar or etching by O2 
(drytek1)
                   5. afm or SEM imaging

Please let me know if they are allowed. Thank you very much for your 
attention and help.

Best,

Yuan