Advanced electric-field scanning probe lithography on molecular resist using active cantilever

Abstract

The routine "on demand" fabrication of features smaller than 10 nm opens up new possibilities for the realization of many novel nanoelectronic, NEMS, optical and bio-nanotechnology-based devices. Based on the thermally actuated, piezoresistive cantilever technology we have developed a first prototype of a scanning probe lithography (SPL) platform able to image, inspect, align and pattern features down to single digit nano regime. The direct, mask-less patterning of molecular resists using active scanning probes represents a promising path circumventing the problems in today's radiation-based lithography. Here, we present examples of practical applications of the previously published electric field based, current-controlled scanning probe lithography on molecular glass resist calixarene by using the developed tabletop SPL system. We demonstrate the application of a step-and-repeat scanning probe lithography scheme including optical as well as AFM based alignment and navigation. In addition, sequential read-write cycle patterning combining positive and negative tone lithography is shown. We are presenting patterning over larger areas (80 x 80 µm) and feature the practical applicability of the lithographic processes.The ability to rapidly fabricate features in sub-10 nm regime in a reproducible manner has been identified as one of the most important task to enable novel nanoelectronic, NEMS, photonic and bio-nanotechnology based devices [1,2]. Scaling the feature size down to 10 nm and below allows us to use quantum based effects like quantized excitations, single-atom electron spin qubit in silicon, and Coulomb blockade and single-electron tunneling [2]. However, state-ofthe-art manufacturing methods are far away from meeting the requirements to generate, overlay and inspect features in single digit nano-regime [3,4].In order to address this problem we are working on novel scanning probe lithography methods, in which self-actuating, self-sensing active cantilever technology is applied. In general, scanning probes are able to confine the tip-sample interaction for imaging, probing and lithography to atomic scales demonstrated by using STM [5] as well as AFM [6] Invited Paper Alternative Lithographic Technologies VII, edited by Douglas J. Resnick, Christopher Bencher, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9423, 94230E · © 2015 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/15/$18

Advanced electric-field scanning probe lithography on molecular resist using active cantilever

“…7 Beyond the patterning at enlarged areas of up to 100 × 100 μm 2 , as shown in Ref. 36, the system is also capable of patterning down to 13-nm line pitch features, as demonstrated in Fig. 7.…”