DEMONSTRATION OF A NANOLITHOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUE USING A SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYER RESIST FOR NEUTRAL ATOMIC CESIUM

A new lithographic method of making nanostructures is demonstrated in which a patterned beam of neutral cesium atoms is used to damage a sim ilar to 1.2-nm-thick self-assembled monolayer resist of alkanethiolate s on gold. The attractive features of cesium for atomic lithography an d the current techniques for neutral atom lithography are sketched. Th e method is detailed and investigations of the damage to the surface a n described. This can be viewed as a first step towards fabricating na nostructures in silicon using optically patterned neutral atomic beams .