title: Accurate Location and Manipulation of Nanoscaled Objects Buried under Spin-Coated Films.
abstract: Detection and precise localization of nanoscale structures buried beneath spin-coated films are highly valuable additions to nanofabrication technology. In principle, the topography of the final film contains information about the location of the buried features. However, it is generally believed that the relation is masked by flow effects, which lead to an upstream shift of the dry film's topography and render precise localization impossible. Here we demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, that the flow-shift paradigm does not apply at the submicrometer scale. Specifically, we show that the resist topography is accurately obtained from a convolution operation with a symmetric Gaussian kernel whose parameters solely depend on the resist characteristics. We exploit this finding for a 3 nm precise overlay fabrication of metal contacts to an InAs nanowire with a diameter of 27 nm using thermal scanning probe lithography.
authors.affiliation: †IBM Research - Zurich, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rawlings
authors.affiliation: †IBM Research - Zurich, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.affiliation: ‡IBM Research - Almaden, San Jose, California 95120, United States.
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Hedrick
authors.affiliation: ‡IBM Research - Almaden, San Jose, California 95120, United States.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Coady
authors.affiliation: †IBM Research - Zurich, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Urs
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Duerig
authors.affiliation: †IBM Research - Zurich, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Armin W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Knoll
keywords: atomic force microscopy; maskless lithography; spin coating; subsurface imaging; thermal scanning probe lithography