Highly Conducting Patterned Pd Nanowires by Direct-Write Electron Beam Lithography

Abstract

Palladium hexadecylthiolate is shown to serve as a negative-tone direct-write electron resist to produce nanopatterns down to 30 nm. The written patterns do not deviate much from the precursor in composition, while a post-treatment at 230 degrees C in air produced metallic Pd nanowires with residual carbon less than 10% and resistivity close to the bulk value, a desirable property of interconnects in nanocircuitry. The as-written patterns contain small nanocrystals (<5 nm) in a hydrocarbon matrix, which upon annealing aggregate to form well-connected networks of larger nanocrystals (5-15 nm), thus giving rise to metallic conductivity.

Metal hierarchical patterning by direct nanoimprint lithography

“…Till date, such routes using metal-organics as lithography resists, have been employed for simple two-dimensional patterning of metals by direct write electron beam lithography1011 and micromolding1213. For large area patterning, nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is ideal14, although direct imprinting of metal patterns has not been attempted thus far; there are examples related to metal oxides using precursors such as metal methacrylates15 and alkoxides161718.…”

Micromolding—A Soft Lithography Technique

“…It is a metal-organic compound, and on thermolysis, neat decomposition takes place, leading to metallic Pd, with minimal carboncontamination [27]. As a result, the resistivity of the obtained Pd film is usually quite close to that of the bulk metal.…”

Fabrication of ultrahigh resolution metal nanowires and nanodots through EUV interference lithography

“…Top-down methods for the production of nanostructures include dip-pen nanolithography (DPL) [9], electron beam lithography (EBL) [10], focused ion beam (FIB) [11], nanoimprint lithography (NIL) [12], laser interference lithography [13], etc. These methods are either time consuming, costly, or resolution limited.…”