Development of microplasma devices arrays for maskless nanoscale material etching

This paper reports a novel maskless nanoscale material etching method based on microplasma devices arrays. That is, inverted pyramidal microplasma devices arrays are integrated into the scanning probe tips array to realize maskless nanoscale material etching with advantages of high efficiency, large area and low cost. A 4×4 inverted pyramidal microplasma device array with each microcavity dimension of 50μm was successfully fabricated by MEMS process. Experiment results showed that the microplasma devices arrays could ignite in rare gas Ar under dc excitation. Ballast resistance in electrical testing system played an important roles in device array ignitions. V-I characteristics of the device array at 10kpa of Ar was in negative glow discharge mode. This work may lay a good foundation for future maskless microplasma nanoscale material etching.