CHARPAN

Charged Particle Nanotech

Project

Principles of Projection Mask-Less Patterning (PMLP)

For PMLP nanopatterning a broad charged particle beam is directed to a programmable aperture plate system with thousands of apertures of micrometric dimension. Near the apertures there are tiny deflector plates, each of which can be individually powered (to several Volts) using integrated CMOS electronics. The slightly deflected beams are stopped near the cross-over of a charged particle beam projection optics with 200x reduction. The undeflected beams are projected to the substrate with nanometer resolution.

The parallel structured beam used in CHARPAN removes any material along the beam direction. Typical ion sputter removal rates are ~ 1 - 10 sputtered atoms per incident ion. Sputter rates vary by a factor of 5 to 10 for different materials. If precursor gases are used, removal rates or deposition rates can be enhanced to more than 20 atoms/ion.