A study of the self-aligned nanometre scale palladium clusters on silicon formation process

Abstract

The possibility of the self-aligned formation of Pd/Pd2Si/Si nanostructures on a single-crystal silicon substrate is shown. A porous anodic oxide film of Al was used as a mask which determines the size and shape of the nanostructures. A thin Al film was first deposited on the silicon substrate and then transformed in a nanoporous oxide by the well known anodic treatment procedure in a sulfuric acid and water solution. It is shown by atomic force microscopy that nanoscale Pd clusters with diameters equal to the size of pores in anodic Al remain at the surface of silicon substrate after cathode deposition of Pd into the pores, vacuum thermal annealing and chemical etching of the Al2O3 mask. In addition, we determine the dependencies of the size and shape of the nanoclusters on the mask formation regimes and the Pd deposition conditions.

Evolution of Surface Morphology, Crystallite Size, and Texture of WO[sub 3] Layers Sputtered onto Si-Supported Nanoporous Alumina Templates

“…Besides, in the previous work 18 the oxidized silicon wafer was used only as a microscopically flat dielectric material, i.e., the semiconductor nature of the substrate material was neither of interest nor of importance. Therefore, employing a single-crystal, doped Si wafer as the substrate demands careful consideration of electrochemical processes occurring at the respective Al/Si interface during anodizing 20 to avoid unfavorable perforation of the isolating alumina barrier layer, oxidation of the substrate, or transferring an array of the alumina pores into the silicon wafer. 21 In the present paper, we have prepared two series of porous anodic alumina films onto n-type single-crystal Si wafers in tartaric and malonic acid electrolytes, of variable pore sizes and optimized pore configurations, and employed these Si-supported anodic films as templates for magnetron sputtering WO 3 layers.…”

Single Route for Producing Organized Metallic Domes, Dots, and Pores by Colloidal Templating and Over-Sputtering

“…[1] Creating such structures using traditional electron lithography methods requires very expensive equipment and the fabrication process is lengthy and time consuming. [2] Alternatively, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of organic molecules on metal and semiconductor surfaces can be tailored to develop a new self-organization system for producing an array of two-dimensional metal nanodots. [3,4] However, this approach typically requires a long time to create a large organized area (sometimes about 5 days) and is somewhat complicated.…”

Direct formation of self-assembled nanoporous aluminium oxide on SiO2and Si substrates

“…Recently, Al anodization has been combined with traditional silicon processing to fabricate uniform anodic aluminium oxide thin films directly onto a Si substrate [17][18][19]. For instance, Crouse et al [18] fabricated nanoporous anodic aluminium oxide thin films on an n-type Si substrate and transferred the nanoporous pattern into Si, which demonstrated the feasibility of using anodic aluminium oxide as an etch mask on a Si substrate.…”