Directed Self-assembly of Dendrimer Columns with High Aspect Ratio Patterns

Directed self-assembly has considerable attention to form highly ordered and dense nanopatterns compared to conventional top-down lithography. Especially, directed self-assembly of dendrimers shows small feature size (~ 4.7 nm), ultra-dense structures, and fast self-assembly. Herein, we report directed self-assembly of dendrimers for long-range ordering on the macroscopic area. Graphoepitaxy by high resolution (~ 20 nm) and high aspect ratio (> 10) line patterns controls dendrimer columns over large-area (4 cm x 4 cm) with minimal dead spaces (~ 1%). Significant point is that ordering behavior of dendrimer columns is controllable by the dimension of guiding template and dendrimer film thickness. Dendrimer columns perpendicular to the line pattern direction are generated in the narrow guiding template. On the other hand, dendrimer columns which are parallel to the line pattern direction are represented in very specific condition, narrow guiding template and control of the ratio of dendrimer film thickness to the pattern height are necessary. These approaches exhibit opportunities for lithographic applications, which are based on directed self-assembly of dendrimers.