All-Water Etching-Free Electron Beam Lithography for On-Chip Nanomaterials
Xiaohan Wang, Xiao Dai, Hao Wang, Jiong Wang, Qi Chen, Fengnan Chen, Qinghua Yi, Rujun Tang, Liang Gao, Liang Ma, Chen Wang, Xiangyi Wang, Guanglong He, Yue Fei, Yanqiu Guan, Biao Zhang, Yue Dai, Xuecou Tu, Lijian Zhang, Lijian Zhang, Labao Zhang, Labao Zhang, Guifu Zou
Abstract
Electron beam lithography uses an accelerated electron beam to fabricate patterning on an electron-beam-sensitive resist but requires complex dry etching or lift-off processes to transfer the pattern to the substrate or film on the substrate. In this study, etching-free electron beam lithography is developed to directly write a pattern of various materials in all-water processes, achieving the desired semiconductor nanopatterns on a silicon wafer. Introduced sugars are copolymerized with metal ions-coordinated polyethylenimine under the action of electron beams. The all-water process and thermal treatment result in nanomaterials with satisfactory electronic properties, indicating that diverse on-chip semiconductors (e.g., metal oxides, sulfides, and nitrides) can be directly printed on-chip by an aqueous solution system. As a demonstration, zinc oxide patterns can be achieved with a line width of 18 nm and a mobility of 3.94 cm 2 V –1 s –1 . This etching-free electron beam lithography strategy provides an efficient alternative for micro/nanofabrication and chip manufacturing.