Substrate effects on the electron-beam-induced deposition of platinum from a liquid precursor

Abstract

Focused electron-beam-induced deposition using bulk liquid precursors (LP-EBID) is a new nanofabrication technique developed in the last two years as an alternative to conventional EBID, which utilizes cumbersome gaseous precursors. Furthermore, LP-EBID using dilute aqueous precursors has been demonstrated to yield platinum (Pt) nanostructures with as-deposited metal content that is substantially higher than the purity achieved by EBID with currently available gaseous precursors. This advantage of LP-EBID—along with the ease of use, low cost, and relative innocuousness of the liquid precursors—holds promise for its practical applicability in areas such as rapid device prototyping and lithographic mask repair. One of the feasibility benchmarks for the LP-EBID method is the ability to deposit high-fidelity nanostructures on various substrate materials. In this study, we report the first observations of performing LP-EBID on bare and metal-coated silicon–nitride membranes, and compare the resulting Pt deposits to those obtained by LP-EBID on polyimide membranes in terms of nucleation, morphology, size dependence on electron dose, and purity.