Williamson is from Wichita, Kansas. He received his BS in chemical engineering from Kansas State University in 2008. During his undergraduate career, he studied nanoporous carbon membranes for gas separation in the research group of Professor Henry Foley at Penn State University, investigated atomic layer deposition of indium oxide and indium nitride in the lab of Professor Steven George at the University of Colorado Boulder and researched foams formed from the dissolution of carbon dioxide with Professor Larry Glasgow at Kansas State University.
He joined the research group of Professor Paul Nealey at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 2009, where he studied block copolymer thin films. Lance spearheaded a collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories to combine 193 nm immersion photolithography with block copolymer directed self-assembly. He received his master’s in chemical and biological engineering from UW-Madison in January 2013. He is currently pursuing a PhD from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and is located at Imec in Leuven, Belgium as part of a collaboration to study the effect of blend formulation of block copolymers on the directed self-assembly process.
Lance Williamson's master’s project analyzed the effects of confinement on blends of block copolymers that macrophase separate due to disparate molecular weight. Even though the block copolymers have the same polymer chemistry, they are only partially miscible when their molecular weights are sufficiently different. Furthermore, the saturation concentration is affected by thin film confinement. This system was analyzed with a combination of electron microscopy and x-ray scattering techniques.
Williamson is currently collaborating at Imec to study the effect of blend formulation of block copolymers on the directed self-assembly process. Formulation can include multiple block copolymers and possibly homopolymers to control the relative volume fraction and the natural period of the final blend.
