Fabrication of silicon nanopillars using self-organized gold–chromium mask

In this paper we present a fabrication process for nanometer scale silicon pillars. High aspect ratio and smooth sidewalls of the pillars are obtained by reactive ion etching of self-organized gold–chromium masked silicon. After annealing, a thin Au/Cr film is converted to the disordered array of metal particles. The particle diameter and density could be controlled by varying the thickness of the films. A set of experiments in fluorine based plasmas has been carried out in order to investigate the processing of silicon quantum pillars. The results show that the mask has a low speed of erosion. Sidewall evolution during low rf power etching has been analyzed. The process parameters for realizing high-anisotropy pillars of different shapes have been found.