NANOLITHOGRAPHY WITH AN ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPE

A lithographic technique, employing the vibrating tip of an atomic for ce microscope to mechanically pattern various materials such as photor esist, metals or semiconductors in the nanometre regime has been devel oped. We use this technique for the fabrication of etch masks as well as for the patterning of evaporation shadow masks. The tip quality has been found to be a crucial factor in the lithographic resolution. We therefore use ultra hard, amorphous carbon tips, which are prepared by electron beam deposition in an electron microscope. With these tips, additionally sharpened in an oxygen plasma, we now succeed in fabricat ing hole arrays with periods in the 10 nm regime. These hole arrays ar e transferred to the electron system of a GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure, and the magneto resistance of such fabricated antidot arrays is discu ssed. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited