Fabrication of high aspect ratio silicon pillars of <10 nm diameter

We report the fabrication of high aspect ratio, sub-10 nm size, structures in silicon without involving any wet chemical etching. A 50 nm thick double layer of low and high molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate resist was exposed with an 80 kV electron beam of diameter smaller than 5 nm. After exposure the resist was developed in 3:7 cellusolve: methanol with ultrasonic agitation during development. A 5 nm thick AuPd film was deposited by ionized beam evaporation and a metal pattern was obtained by liftoff. Sub-10 nm AuPd dots were recorded with a scanning electron microscope. The AuPd pattern was then used as a mask on the Si substrate which was etched with reactive ion etching. Silicon nanocolumns with diameters ranging from 5 to 7 nm and an aspect ratio of height to diameter of about 7:1 were obtained.