This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I (SBIR) project will develop the means necessary to adapt the Local Electrode Atom Probe (LEAP) to provide three-dimensional atomic-resolution imaging and elemental analysis of biochips and other nanoscale biotechnological specimens. Hard lithography used in the microelectronics and biotechnology industries already produces nanostructures that are extremely difficult to evaluate with current instrumentation. Soft lithography, self-assembly, and other methods will produce even smaller features from biological and organic materials. Structural characterization for bio-nanotechnology is already problematic because analytical electron microscopy has substantial limitations in the quantitative imaging of carbon and other low atomic number elements. Further compounding this problem is the fact that unlike the simpler geometries of microelectronics devices, the biomacromolecules intrinsic to biotechnology are three-dimensional. Without analytical instrumentation better suited to the evaluation of 3-D bio-organic structures, industry will be "flying blind" as it develops complex nanoscale biotechnologies. Our project is designed to adapt and develop methods for the LEAP to perform atomic-scale analysis of bio-organic biotechnological specimens. After adaptation, LEAP should be able to rapidly image 3-D structures at atomic (0.2-0.5 nm) resolution, while providing quantum-level elemental composition of synthetic polymers, proteins, and nucleic acids critical for biochips and other biomacromolecular nanoengineered devices. The primary commercial application of the technology and the product developed in this project will be as a supplement to the existing analytical instrumentation used for the determination of structure and composition of nano-biotechnology devices and components. Additional applications are envisioned in academic and industrial research in the areas of structural biology, cell biology and pharmaceutics.
