Lithography with cesium atomic beams

Summary form only given. To meet future demands for nanofabrication, lithographic systems with sub-100-nm resolution are required. Atoms with a velocity of several tens of meters per second have de Broglie wavelengths in the picometer regime, and hence, diffraction does not prevent focusing to a nanometer spot size. Atomic beams are therefore a natural candidate for generating nanostructures. Highly periodic one- and two-dimensional structures with linewidths well below 100 nm can be grown in a direct and parallel process by focusing atoms with standing-wave light fields onto a substrate. Our system consists of a self-assembled monolayer of thioles on top of a thin gold layer (30 nm).