Direct writing of silicon nanostructures using liquid-phase electron beam induced deposition of hydrosilanes

Abstract

Solid Si (wafer) and gaseous Si (silane) are generally used as starting materials for fabricating Si devices. In this study, a liquid precursor (liquid-phase hydrosilane) for semiconducting Si, called liquid Si (liq-Si), was synthesized to establish a liquid pathway for fabricating Si. Although the liquid-to-solid Si conversion can be induced by heating at 400 °C, conversion without heating was realized herein by electron-beam (EB) irradiation. This study is the first to irradiate liq-Si with EB. Size-controllable Si nanodots, with diameters of the order of 100 nm, were directly deposited at any point by liquid-phase electron-beam-induced deposition (LP-EBID) with a beam diameter of 50 nm. This approach yielded less-contaminated deposits at the detection limit of energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, as opposed to typical EBID, wherein carbon impurities up to 90% are found. The processing resolution of LP-EBID is potentially 1 nm or less. Therefore, this non-heating deposition technique realizes the direct writing of Si nanostructures and would be a powerful tool for Si nanofabrication.

Slot-die coating of silicon ink for volume production of CMOS polysilicon TFTs

“…To reduce the consumption and cost of CPS ink and to improve its printing resolution, Masuda et al demonstrated nanoimprint of CPS 8) and other variety of fabrication techniques. [9][10][11][12][13] Regardless all these studies were still laboratory in scale using small dimensional substrates.…”