title: Electron-beam-induced deposition in ultrahigh vacuum: lithographic fabrication of clean iron nanostructures.
abstract: The generation of nanostructures with arbitrary shapes and well-defined chemical composition is still a challenge and targets the core of the fast-growing field of nanotechnology. One approach is the maskless nanofabrication technique of electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID). Up to now, the purity of these EBID structures has been rather poor. Here we demonstrate that by performing the EBID process solely under ultrahigh vacuum conditions, the lithographic generation of iron nanostructures on Si(100) with an unprecedented purity of higher than 95% is possible. One particular new aspect is the formation of EBID deposits with reduced size in a strain-induced diffusive process, resulting in deposits significantly smaller than 10 nm.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Chemie II, Interdisciplinary Center for Molecular Materials, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Egerlandstr. 3, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lukasczyk
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schirmer
authors.forename: Hans-Peter
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Steinrück
authors.forename: Hubertus
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Marbach
mesh_terms: D004583:Electrons; D007501:Iron / Q000737:chemistry*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D049329:Nanostructures; D014618:Vacuum
chemical_list: D007501:Iron