Nanometer patterning of InP using aerosol and plasma etching techniques

By the application of aerosol techniques for the deposition of well-defined particles of silver in combination with methane-based electron cyclotron resonance plasma etching, we have been able to fabricate nanometer sized columns of InP. Silver particles are produced via homogeneous nucleation out of silver vapor saturated nitrogen gas from a tube furnace at around 1100 °C and, after size selection, deposited on the surface of InP. Scanning electron microscope images show that equally sized particles of silver, with an effective diameter in the range 20–40 nm, can be generated and deposited on the semiconductor. In a dry etching process applied subsequently we transfer vertically the feature of the particles into the InP material underneath producing free-standing columns of InP with diameters as small as 50 nm.