Affiliation:
1. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Abstract
The spatially dependent de-excitation of a beam of metastable argon atoms, traveling through an optical standing wave, produced a periodic array of localized metastable atoms with position and momentum spreads approaching the limit stated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Silicon and silicon dioxide substrates placed in the path of the atom beam were patterned by the metastable atoms. The de-excitation of metastable atoms upon collision with the surface promoted the deposition of a carbonaceous film from a vapor-phase hydrocarbon precursor. The resulting patterns were imaged both directly and after chemical etching. Thus, quantum-mechanical steady-state atom distributions can be used for sub-0.1-micrometer lithography.
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Reference28 articles.
1. Argon atoms in the 4 s [1/2] J =0 and 4 s [3/2] J =2 states have 11.72 and 11.55 eV of internal energy respectively. Their natural lifetimes are both ≥30 s which is much longer than their flight time through the apparatus. Other noble gas atoms that have energetic metastable states and level structures suitable for optical quenching experiments are Ne (17 eV) Kr (10 eV) and Xe (8 eV). In this experiment the 4 s [3/2] J =2 state was used.
2. The transfer of energy to the hydrocarbon molecules is localized to less than 1 nm, which is ideal for high-resolution detection. See Harada Y., Masuda S., Ozaki H., Chem. Rev. 97, 1897 (1997). , and references therein.
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4. Thywissen J. H., et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol.16B, 1155 (1998).
5. Rehse S. J., et al., Appl. Phys. Lett.71, 1427 (1997).
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