Ta. Winningham et al., NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF THE EVOLUTION OF NANOMETER-SCALE SURFACE-TOPOGRAPHY GENERATED BY ION MILLING, Journal of vacuum science & technology. A. Vacuum, surfaces, and films, 16(3), 1998, pp. 1178-1182
Citations number
13
Categorie Soggetti
Physics, Applied","Materials Science, Coatings & Films
Ion milling has been used to transfer the nanometer scale, periodic pa
ttern of a protein crystal (''S-layer'') into the supporting substrate
. At the same time, etch pits, attributable to the presence of surface
contamination, evolve in random areas of the substrate not covered by
the S-layer (''off-S-layer''). Using the theory of ripple topography
proposed by Bradley and Harper, a computer simulation of hole formatio
n based on curvature dependent sputtering and surface self-diffusion h
as been formulated. To determine the validity of this model as applied
to the patterning process, profiles of actual etch pits have been obt
ained using atomic force microscopy, and the simulation has been used
to evolve these profiles in time. Even with a number of simplifying as
sumptions in place, the model simulates the experimental data quite we
ll. (C) 1998 American Vacuum Society. [S0734-2101(98)03003-6].