Nanofabrication Techniques

The smallest microfabricated structures that we have defined through lithography include 6nm wide pillars that were etched by chemically assisted ion processing through quantum well material into GaAs/InGaAs material. This capability required the combination of a new electron beam exposure method, the optimization of the ion etch parameters to match the fidelity of the mask, and a new characterization technique through reflection electron microscopy to image the resulting nanostructures. The paper describing this work was published with my technician as the first author in “Microfabrication below 10nm” and showed the possibilities and challenges of performing lithography in the sub-10nm size regime.