Impact of parameter variation in fabrication of nanostructure by atomic force microscopy nanolithography

Structure Fabrication on Silicon at Atomic and Close-To-Atomic Scale Using Atomic Force Microscopy: Implications for Nanopatterning and Nanodevice Fabrication

In this paper, the atomic-scale structure fabrication on Si (100) substrate using atomic force microscopy (AFM) with the aid of electrochemical and mechanical processes in a humid environment and under ambient conditions is studied. The local oxidation patterns are formed using platinum-coated tips with the aid of bias applied to the tip-substrate junction, and direct removal has been achieved using single crystal diamond tips, enabling the structure fabrication at the atomic and close-to-atomic scale. The depth and height of the etched trenches reached about 1 nm, which provides an approach for the fabrication of atomic-scale electrodes for molecular device development. Furthermore, material removal close to about three silicon atoms (~3.2 Å) has been achieved. This is important in molecular device fabrication. A detailed comparison among the nanopatterns and the material removal over bare and hydrofluoric acid (HF) treated silicon substrates is provided. This comparison is useful for the application of fabricating atomic-scale electrodes needed for the molecular electronic components. A deep understanding of atomic-scale material removal can be pushed to fabricate a single atomic protrusion by removing the neighbouring atoms so that the molecule can be attached to a single atom, thereby the AFM tip and Si substrate could act as the electrodes and the molecule between them as the channel, providing basic transistor actions in a molecular transistor design. In this paper, platinum-coated and single-crystal diamond tips are used to explain the oxide formations and direct material removal, respectively.

Effect of tetramethylammonium hydroxide/isopropyl alcohol wet etching on geometry and surface roughness of silicon nanowires fabricated by AFM lithography

The optimization of etchant parameters in wet etching plays an important role in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. Wet etching of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH)/isopropyl alcohol (IPA) on silicon nanowires fabricated by AFM lithography is studied herein. TMAH (25 wt %) with different IPA concentrations (0, 10, 20, and 30 vol %) and etching time durations (30, 40, and 50 s) were investigated. The relationships between etching depth and width, and etching rate and surface roughness of silicon nanowires were characterized in detail using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The obtained results indicate that increased IPA concentration in TMAH produced greater width of the silicon nanowires with a smooth surface. It was also observed that the use of a longer etching time causes more unmasked silicon layers to be removed. Importantly, throughout this study, wet etching with optimized parameters can be applied in the design of the devices with excellent performance for many applications.

Conductive polycrystalline diamond probes for local anodic oxidation lithography

This is the first report characterizing local anodic oxidation (LAO) lithography performed using conductive monolithic polycrystalline diamond (MD) and conductive polycrystalline diamond-coated (DC) tips and comparing it to the diamond-like carbon-coated and metal-coated silicon tips. The range and the rate of increase in the lithographic linewidth and height with tip bias (dw/dV and dh/dV) differed based on the tip material. The DC tips resulted in wider and taller lines and a higher dw/dV and dh/dV compared to metal-coated tips with a similar force constant (k(Avg)). The metal-coated and the DC tips with comparable k(Avg) showed comparable threshold voltages, whereas the MD tips with similar k(Avg) showed a higher threshold voltage. The MD tips exhibited less than half the height and nearly half the dw/dV and dh/dV obtained with the metal-coated tips with similar k Avg, thus also resulting in a smaller width at -10 V. The linewidths were found to be proportional to the inverse of the log of write speed(v) for all the tips; however, the proportionality constant varied with tip material; the DC tips had larger values, and the MD and the metal-coated tips had comparable values. When varying the speed, the height was found to be a sigmoidal function of width, with the MD probes achieving lower height compared to the metal-coated and the DC tips with comparable k(Avg). This study expands the application of monolithic conductive polycrystalline diamond (PCD) probes with outstanding wear resistance to fine LAO lithography.