Nanolithography with metastable neon atoms: Enhanced rate of contamination resist formation for nanostructure fabrication

We report a sevenfold improvement in the rate of contamination resist formation over previous experiments by using metastable neon atoms for nanolithography. Chemically assisted ion beam etching was used to transfer the resist pattern into the substrate. We demonstrate the fabrication of 50-nm-wide features in GaAs with well-defined edges and an aspect ratio >2:1. These are the best resolution and highest aspect ratio features that have been achieved with metastable atom lithography. The resist formation rate by the metastable neon atoms and the etch selectivity of the contamination resist with GaAs were measured.