NANOSTRUCTURE FABRICATION IN SILICON USING CESIUM TO PATTERN A SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYER

This letter describes the formation of nanometer-scale features in a s ilicon substrate using a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of octylsiloxa ne on silicon dioxide as a resist sensitive to a patterned beam of neu tral cesium atoms. The mask that patterned the atomic beam was a silic on nitride membrane perforated with nm and mu m scale holes, in contac t with the substrate surface. In a two-step wet-chemical etching proce ss, the pattern formed in the SAM was transferred first into the SiO2 layer and then into an underlying silicon substrate. This process demo nstrated the formation of silicon features with diameter similar to 60 nm. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.