Fabrication of palladium-enriched metallic structures by direct focused He+ and Ne+ beam nanowriting from organometallic thin films: a comparison with Ga+ and e− beams

Abstract

A direct nanowriting procedure using helium- and neon-focused ion beams and spin-coated organometallic thin films is introduced and applied to the fabrication of Pd-enriched metallic structures in a single lithography step. This process presents significant advantages over multi-step resist-based lithography and focused beam-induced deposition using gaseous precursors, such as its simplicity and speed, respectively. The optimized process leads to Pd-rich structures with low electrical resistivity values of 141 and 152 μΩ cm under Ne+ or He+ fluences of 1000 and 5000 μC cm−2, respectively. These resistivity values correlate well with compositional and microstructural studies, indicating a high Pd metallic content in a dense structure with a few-nm grain size. The obtained results are compared to similar structures fabricated by direct electron and gallium beam nanowriting, demonstrating the full potential of nanopatterned Pd-based organometallic thin films under the most common focused charged beams. The practical applications of combining spin-coated organometallic thin films with focused beam nanowriting in micro- and nano-lithography modern procedures are also discussed in this contribution.