Using Atom Optics to Fabricate Nanostructures

Abstract

The drive for further miniaturization of electronic and magnetic devices continues to place increasing demands on our abilities to fabricate very small structures and to understand and exploit the physical laws applicable in such devices. Optical lithographic techniques continue to be refined and limitations imposed by diffraction are driving the wavelength of the photons utilized toward the x-ray region. Still shorter wavelength particles, high energy electrons, are used for the highest resolution mask making. A logical extension of this progression would involve using atoms, because of their short de Broglie wavelength, as the pattern generating particle, either to expose a resist, or to deposit structures directly. We are exploring how the techniques of atom optics, a field paralleling electron optics but utilizing neutral atoms instead of electrons, can be used to fabricate structures on the nanometer scale. This article is a brief summary of our research on this topic. A more detailed treatment can be found elsewhere [1].