Micro-patterning of Si(100) surfaces by ethanol cluster ion beams

The irradiation of Si(100) surfaces by ethanol cluster ion beams exhibited high-rate sputtering and low-damage formation. The sputtered depth increased with increase of the acceleration voltage for ethanol cluster ions, and the sputtering yield was a few hundreds times larger than that by Ar monomer ion beams. Also, the RBS channeling measurement showed that the irradiation damage was much less than that by Ar monomer ion irradiation. Furthermore, the AFM image showed that the surface roughness of the irradiated Si(100) surface was less than 1 nm. As well as the Si(100) surface, the sputtered depth of the photo-resist surface increased with increase of the acceleration voltage for ethanol cluster ions. on these results, micro-patterning with various sizes in a range of 3 μm to 100 μm was performed on the Si(100) surfaces by the ethanol cluster ion irradiation. Various kinds of photo-resist mask patterns such as circle, square and line patterns were made on a Si(100) surface by photo-resist technique. The SEM observation showed that micro-patterns were prepared on the Si (100) surface by the ethanol cluster ion irradiation.