Electron beam enhanced surface modification for making highly resolved structures

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Against the described background, it is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide a method of forming submicron structures, especially those structures that have a feature width as small as approximately 10 nm.
Another general object of the invention is to provide a simplified technique for forming high resolution structures, wherein many types of structure may be directly written onto or into a substrate that will serve as the end material of the structure.
A further general object of the invention is to provide an alternative to the traditional polymer resin photoresists that are used with lithographic techniques in the manufacture of microstructures.
It is a more specific object of the invention to enable the manufacture of interconnect lines by directly writing resist patterns on metalized films under an electron beam, and then etching away the non-written portions of the film.
Another specific object of the invention is to provide a method for the manufacture of high resolution semiconductor devices by directly writing negative resist patterns on a metalized film over a silicon wafer, selectively etching to expose the desired semiconductor areas, doping such areas, and then removing the balance of the metalized film and resist coating.
A further specific object of the invention is to enable the creation of directly written useful structures such as high density information units for mass storage by the application of electron beams in suitable gas phase atmospheres to induce attachment of submicron data indicia.
Still another specific object of the invention is to enable the creation of directly written semiconductor device regions by treatment of suitable substrate material such as silicon with an electron beam in an atmosphere of gas phase material containing a dopant as a dissociation product, such that the dopant is combined in the silicon lattice structure to form a semiconductor device under the action of the beam.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention shall be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by the practice of the invention