Nano-lithography by electron exposure using an Atomic Force Microscope

✍ Scribed by P Davidsson; A Lindell; T Mäkelä; M Paalanen; J Pekola

• Book ID: 104306498
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 423 KB
• Volume: 45
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9317
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-9317(98)00255-x

✦ Synopsis

We have used a conductive Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) tip to expose a very thin resist film. An exposing current of low energy electrons was induced from the tip to the substrate by applying a small bias voltage. Uniform resist films as thin as 10 nm were fabricated using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. To orient the defined pattern and to make electrical connections a special larger scale alignment structure was first defined by conventional electron beam lithography, either directly in the Langmuir-Blodgett resist film or in a separate first lift-off process with a thicker resist. The results from the one resist process gave conducting 50 nm lines with a 60 A thick vacuum deposited aluminium film after the pattern transfer. The two step process, which is aiming towards definition of ultra small tunnel junctions, has produced similar conductive lines.