Enhanced material purity and resolution via synchronized laser assisted electron beam induced deposition of platinum

Abstract

We introduce a laser assisted electron beam induced deposition (LAEBID) process which is a nanoscale direct write synthesis method that integrates an electron beam induced deposition process with a synchronized pulsed laser step to induce thermal desorption of reaction by-products. Localized, spatially overlapping electron and photon pulses enable the thermal desorption of the reaction by-product while mitigating issues associated with bulk substrate heating, which can shorten the precursor residence time and distort pattern fidelity due to thermal drift. Current results demonstrate purification of platinum deposits (reduced carbon content by ∼50%) with the addition of synchronized laser pulses as well as a significant reduction in deposit resistivity. Measured resistivities from platinum LAEBID structures (4 × 10³ μΩ cm) are nearly 4 orders of magnitude lower than standard EBID platinum structures (2.2 × 10⁷ μΩ cm) from the same precursor and are lower than the lowest reported EBID platinum resistivity with post-deposition annealing (1.4 × 10⁴ μΩ cm). Finally the LAEBID process demonstrates improved deposit resolution by ∼25% compared to EBID structures under the conditions investigated in this work.