FABRICATION OF SILICON NANOSTRUCTURES WITH A SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE

A technique is presented for fabricating Si nanostructures with a scan ning tunneling microscope operated in air. The process involves the di rect chemical modification of a H-passivated Si(100) surface and a sub sequent liquid etch. The chemically modified portions of the surface c an withstand a deep ( > 100 nm) liquid etch of the unmodified regions with no etch degradation of the modified surface. At a write speed of 1 - 10 mum/s, large-area (50 mum X 50 mum) patterns with lateral featu re sizes approximately 25 nm are reliably fabricated.