Fabrication of silicon nanopillars using self-organized gold-chromium mask

In this paper we present a fabrication process for nanometer scale silicon pillars. High aspect ratio and smooth sidewalls of the pillars are obtained by reactive ion etching of self-organized gold-chromium masked silicon. Af ter annealing, a thin Au/Cr film is converted to the disordered array of me tal particles. The particle diameter and density could be controlled by var ying the thickness of the films. A set of experiments in fluorine based pla smas has been carried out in order to investigate the processing of silicon quantum pillars. The results show that the mask has a low speed of erosion . Sidewall evolution during low rf power etching has been analyzed. The pro cess parameters for realizing high-anisotropy pillars of different shapes h ave been found. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.