Limiting regimes for electron-beam induced deposition of copper from aqueous solutions containing surfactants

Abstract

Focused electron beam induced deposition of pure materials from aqueous solutions has been of interest in recent years. However, controlling the liquid film in partial vacuum is challenging. Here we modify the substrate to increase control over the liquid layer in order to conduct a parametric study of copper deposition in an environmental scanning electron microscope. We identified the transition from electron to mass-transport limited deposition as well as two additional regimes characterized by aggregated and high-aspect ratio deposits. We observe a high deposition efficiency of 1–10 copper atoms per primary electron that is consistent with a radiation chemical model of the deposition process.

Direct In‐ and Out‐of‐Plane Writing of Metals on Insulators by Electron‐Beam‐Enabled, Confined Electrodeposition with Submicrometer Feature Size

“…[10] Such experiments are typically conducted with electron microscopes. In previous approaches, the liquid electrolyte was either present in the form of stationary droplets, micro-to millimeters in width, [11][12][13][14][15] or contained in a closed liquid cell. [16][17][18][19][20][21] However, both approaches for introducing the liquid precursor into an electron microscope are not very well suited for reproducible, high-resolution deposition of 3D structures with a high flexibility to choose different substrates.…”