AFM scratching and metal deposition through insulating layers on silicon

The present work deals with semiconductor nano-patterning technique based on scratching an insulating layer using the tip of either a micro-indenter or an atomic force microscope. The insulating or masking layer can be a thin oxide film (10 nm thick) grown on a p-Si (1 0 0) or self-assembled organic monolayer covalently bound to a n-Si (1 1 1) surface. Electrochemical techniques are used for Cu deposition in the openings made by scratching through the masking layers. Engraving properties at both micro- and nanoscale are investigated. It is shown that under optimized deposition parameters selective and well-defined metallic structures onto Si surfaces can be produced with a lateral resolution in the several 100 nm range.