Scanning tunneling microscopy nanofabrication of electronic industry compatible thermal Si oxide

We report here a nanofabrication result on a 2.7 nm thermal oxide layer using the low-energy e-beam/scanning tunneling microscope (STM) technique in conjunction with thermal annealing, in which line windows with average width of 50 nm can be formed. Comparing to the low-energy e-beam processing on thin layers of native Si oxide, this nanofabrication shows a uniform etching of the electronic industry compatible Si oxide, with which nanoscale trenches can be formed. In addition to demonstrating further the nanofabrication capability of this technique on the thermal oxide, the results present critical evidence to our previous discussions on the mechanism of the low- energy e-beam/STM nanofabrication. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V.