NT-IT Convergence
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on Oct. 20 that a research team led by Yoon Dong-ki, professor from the Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology at KAIST, has successfully developed a technology to create high-precision chiral helical nanofilaments.
This technology can turn a helical structure, which is most difficult to create among three-dimensional structures, into various forms in a larger area.
The research team was able to develop nanofilaments using ductile materials like polymers and liquid crystals, which can be assembled or separated in nanometer spaces according to surrounding conditions such as temperature and density.
This structure made of liquid crystal, which is in a state between a liquid and a solid, can maintain a homogeneous helical form in 20 to 200 nm of space.
This method will make it possible to store hundreds of times more data, since a 3D patterning is possible. The capacity will go beyond the current two-dimensional photo-engraving manufacturing process used to produce semiconductors.
In addition, it will be possible to greatly reduce manufacturing costs by drastically decreasing manufacturing processing.
Professor Yoon said, “Based on this newly-developed technology, I think that we will be able to find growth engines in liquid crystal-related fields like LCDs by integrating nanotechnology into information technology.”
The research findings were first published online on Oct. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a scientific journal published by the United States National Academy of Science.