Silicon dioxide mask by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition in focused ion beam lithography.

In this work, focused ion beam (FIB) lithography was developed for plasma enhanced atomic layer deposited (PEALD) silicon dioxide SiO2 hard mask. The PEALD process greatly decreases the deposition temperature of the SiO2 hard mask. FIB Ga+ ion implantation on the deposited SiO2 layer increases the wet etch resistivity of the irradiated region. A programmed exposure in FIB followed by development in a wet etchant enables the precisely defined nanoscale patterning. The combination of FIB exposure parameters and the development time provides greater freedom for optimization. The developed process provides high pattern dimension accuracy over the tested range of 90-210 nm. Utilizing the SiO2 mask developed in this work, silicon nanopillars with 40 nm diameter were successfully fabricated with cryogenic deep reactive ion etching and the aspect ratio reached 16:1. The fabricated mask is suitable for sub-100 nm high aspect ratio silicon structure fabrication.

All-Graphene Three-Terminal-Junction Field-Effect Devices as Rectifiers and Inverters.

We present prominent tunable and switchable room-temperature rectification performed at 100 kHz ac input utilizing micrometer-scale three-terminal junction field-effect devices. Monolayer CVD graphene is used as both a channel and a gate electrode to achieve all-graphene thin-film structure. Instead of ballistic theory, we explain the rectification characteristics through an electric-field capacitive model based on self-gating in the high source-drain bias regime. Previously, nanoscale graphene three-terminal junctions with the ballistic (or quasi-ballistic) operation have shown rectifications with relatively low efficiency. Compared to strict nanoscale requirements of ballistic devices, diffusive operation gives more freedom in design and fabrication, which we have exploited in the cascading device architecture. This is a significant step for all-graphene thin-film devices for integrated monolithic graphene circuits.

Aluminum oxide mask fabrication by focused ion beam implantation combined with wet etching.

A novel aluminum oxide (Al2O3) hard mask fabrication process with nanoscale resolution is introduced. The Al2O3 mask can be used for various purposes, but in this work it was utilized for silicon patterning using cryogenic deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). The patterning of Al2O3 is a two-step process utilizing focused ion beam (FIB) irradiation combined with wet chemical etching. Gallium (Ga(+)) FIB maskless patterning confers wet etch selectivity between the irradiated region and the non-irradiated one on the Al2O3 layer, and mask patterns can easily be revealed by wet etching. This method is a modification of Ga(+) FIB mask patterning for the silicon etch stop, which eliminates the detrimental lattice damage and doping of the silicon substrate in critical devices. The shallow surface gallium FIB irradiated Al2O3 mask protects the underlying silicon from Ga(+) ions. The performance of the masking capacity was tested by drawing pairs consisting of a line and an empty space with varying width. The best result was seven such pairs for 1 µm. The smallest half pitch was 59 nm. This method is capable of arbitrary pattern generation. The fabrication of a freestanding single-ended tuning fork resonator utilizing the introduced masking method is demonstrated.

Self-organized origami structures via ion-induced plastic strain.

Ion processing of the reactive surface of a free-standing polycrystalline metal film induces a flow of atoms into grain boundaries, resulting in plastic deformation. A thorough experimental and theoretical analysis of this process is presented, along with the demonstration of novel engineering concepts for precisely controlled 3D assembly at micro- and nanoscopic scales.

The fabrication of silicon nanostructures by focused-ion-beam implantation and TMAH wet etching.

Local gallium implantation of silicon by a focused ion beam (FIB) has been used to create a mask for anisotropic tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) wet etching. The dependence of the etch stop properties of gallium-doped silicon on the implanted dose has been investigated and a dose of 4 x 10(13) ions cm(- 2) has been determined to be the threshold value for achieving observable etching resistance. Only a thin, approx. 50 nm, surface layer is found to be durable enough to serve as a mask with a high selectivity of at least 2000:1 between implanted and non-implanted areas. The combined FIB-TMAH process has been used to generate various types of 3D nanostructures including nanochannels separated by thin vertical sidewalls with aspect ratios up to 1:30, ultra-narrow (approx. 25 nm) freestanding bridges and cantilevers, and gratings with a resolution of 20 lines microm(- 1).