Conditions for highly conductive wire fabrication by electron-beam-induced deposition

Electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID) is one of the most promising processes for direct nanofabrication. Through EBID using WF/sub 6/, we have fabricated conductive wires 10-20 nm wide whose lowest resistivity was 600 /spl mu//spl Omega//spl middot/cm. Despite dry evacuation and EBID in an ultra-high vacuum (UHV), wires were often obtained having several orders higher resistivity compared to the best result. Highly conductive wires seemed difficult to be reproducibly fabricated using more careful preparation of samples and/or wet cleaning before EBID. Here, we applied additional dry cleaning such as O/sub 2/ plasma treatment and annealing process before EBID, and clarified conditions for highly conductive wire fabrication.