LOCALIZATION OF METASTABLE ATOM BEAMS WITH OPTICAL STANDING WAVES - NANOLITHOGRAPHY AT THE HEISENBERG LIMIT

The spatially dependent de-excitation of a beam of metastable argon at oms, traveling through an optical standing wave, produced a periodic a rray of localized metastable atoms with position and momentum spreads approaching the limit stated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Silicon and silicon dioxide substrates placed in the path of the atom beam were patterned by the metastable atoms. The de-excitation of meta stable atoms upon collision with the surface promoted the deposition o f a carbonaceous film from a vapor-phase hydrocarbon precursor, The re sulting patterns were imaged both directly and after chemical etching. Thus, quantum-mechanical steady-state atom distributions can be used for sub-0.1-micrometer lithography.