Patterning of hydrogen-passivated Si(100) using Ar(3P0,2) metastable atoms

We describe the patterning of silicon by exposing a hydrogen-passivated Si(100) surface to Ar(P-3(0,2)) metastable atoms through a fine Ni grid in the presence of a small background pressure of oxygen. Metastable atom impact leads to the formation of a uniform oxide layer that is sufficiently resistant to chemical etching to allow feature depths greater than or similar to 20 nm to be realized. With optical manipulation of the incident metastable atoms, this technique could provide the basis for massively parallel nanoscale fabrication on silicon without the use of organic resists. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02113-0].