SHADOW EDGE LITHOGRAPHY FOR NANOSCALE PATTERNING AND MANUFACTURING

摘要

An advanced high-resolution and high-throughput shadow edge (116) lithography (SEL) method is disclosed for forming uniform zero- one- and two-dimensional nanostructures on a substrate. The method entails high-vacuum oblique vapor deposition and a compensated shadow effect of a pre-patterned layer (100). A method of compensating for cross-substrate variation is also disclosed. The compensation approach enables routine, low-cost fabrication of uniform nanoscale features, or nanogaps (110) on the order of 10 nm ± 1 nm, that can be used to etch nanowells (196) or to form nanostructures such as nanowires (169), using a selective metal lift-off process. A wafer-scale analytical model is proposed for predicting the width of nanogaps (110) fabricated by the shadow effect on pre-patterned edges. By combining compensation and pattern reversal techniques with multiple shadow patterning, two-dimensional structures such as crossing nanowires may be generated. A technique is disclosed for smoothing edge roughness of the nanostructures.