Resolution Limits of Electron-Beam Lithography toward the Atomic Scale

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 1555 - 1558
• Main Authors: Manfrinato, Vitor R, Zhang, Lihua, Su, Dong, Duan, Huigao, Hobbs, Richard G, Stach, Eric A, Berggren, Karl K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 10.04.2013
• Subjects: Aberration; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electron beam lithography; Electronics; Electrons; Energy measurement; Energy use; Exact sciences and technology; functional nanomaterials; high voltage electron beam lithography; Hydrogen - chemistry; Materials science; Methods of nanofabrication; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning Transmission; Nanolithography; NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; Nanostructure; Organosilicon Compounds - chemistry; Physics; Resists; Scanning electron microscopy; Spectroscopy; Spectroscopy, Electron Energy-Loss; STEM lithography; STEM lithography; electron beam lithography; high voltage electron beam lithography; hydrogen silsesquioxane; EELS; point spread function; EEL spectroscopy; Electron resists; Silsesquioxane polymer; Electron beam lithography; Aberrations; Resists; Energy losses; Scanning transmission electron microscopy
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl304715p

We investigated electron-beam lithography with an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope. We achieved 2 nm isolated feature size and 5 nm half-pitch in hydrogen silsesquioxane resist. We also analyzed the resolution limits of this technique by measuring the point-spread function at 200 keV. Furthermore, we measured the energy loss in the resist using electron-energy-loss spectroscopy.