Ti. Kamins et al., Positioning of self-assembled, single-crystal, germanium islands by silicon nanoimprinting, APPL PHYS L, 74(12), 1999, pp. 1773-1775
Strain energy from the lattice mismatch of a heteroepitaxial system can cre
ate "self-assembled,'' single-crystal islands irregularly arranged on the s
urface. Alternatively, features of tens of nanometers can be patterned on a
substrate by "nanoimprinting'' using a mold and etching. When these two te
chniques are combined, the small patterned features can interact with the s
elf-assembly process, causing the islands to form at the patterned features
. The resulting regular array of very small islands may be useful for futur
e devices. The positioning of single-crystal Ge islands by Si mesas formed
by nanoimprinting and etching is demonstrated in this letter. (C) 1999 Amer
ican Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)04512-X].