Proton Beam Nano-Machining: End Station Design and Testing
- PDF / 483,448 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 100 Downloads / 169 Views
T2.1.1
Proton Beam Nano-Machining: End Station Design and Testing J.A. van Kan1, A.A. Bettiol and F. Watt Centre for Ion Beam Applications, Physics Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117542 1 Contact: [email protected] ABSTRACT A new nuclear nanoprobe facility has been developed at the Centre for Ion Beam Applications (CIBA) in the Physics Department of the National University of Singapore. This facility is the first of its type dedicated to proton beam micromachining on a micron as well as a nano scale. The design and performance of the facility, which is optimized for 3D lithography with MeV protons, is discussed here. The system has been designed to be compatible with Si wafers up to 6”. The production of good quality high aspect ratio microstructures requires a lithographic technique capable of producing microstructures with smooth vertical sidewalls. In proton beam micromachining, a high energy (e.g. 2 MeV) proton beam is focused to a sub-100 nm spot size and scanned over a resist material (e.g. SU-8 and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)). When a proton beam interacts with matter it follows an almost straight path, the depth of which is dependent on the proton beam energy. These features enable the production of nanometer sized polymer structures. Experiments have shown that post-bake and curing steps are not required in this SU-8 process, reducing the effects of cracking and internal stress in the resist. Since proton beam micromachining is a fast direct write lithographic technique it has high potential for the production of high-aspect-ratio nano-structures. INTRODUCTION Current microelectronics production technologies are essentially two-dimensional (2D), well suited for the 2D topologies prevalent in microelectronics. As semiconductor devices are scaled down in size, coupled with the integration of moving parts on a chip, there will be an increasing demand for smaller Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) devices. High aspect ratio threedimensional (3D) microstructures with sub-micron details are also of growing interest for optoelectronic devices. Therefore it is essential to develop new lithographic techniques suitable for the production of high aspect ratio 3D micro- and nano-components. One of the more established techniques for 3D micromachining is X-ray lithography with electroforming and micromoulding (LIGA) [1] although one drawback for this process is the relative high production cost involved coupled with the scarcity of facilities. There are a few emerging new lithographies (e.g. Proton Beam writing (p-beam writing), deep ultra violet (DUV) lithography and stereo microlithography). P-beam writing is being developed at the CIBA and has the potential to be a promising new 3D lithographic technique [2-4]. In p-beam writing, a high energy (e.g. 2 MeV) proton beam is focused to a sub-micron spot size and scanned over a suitable resist material (e.g. SU-8 and PMMA), to produce a 3D latent image in a resist material. Of these new techniques p-beam writing is the only technique that
Data Loading...
