Patterning of hydrogen-passivated Si(100) using Ar(³P_0,2) metastable atoms

We describe the patterning of silicon by exposing a hydrogen-passivated Si(100) surface to Ar(³P_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 ≳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.