Towards four-electrode co-planar metal-insulator-metal nanojunctions down to 10 nm

Abstract

An e-beam nanolithography process with metal lift-off is optimized to produce four-electrode co-planar metal-insulator-metal nanojunctions with an inter-electrode distance down to 10 nm. The e-beam exposure technique is simulated to find the best geometry of the four electrodes. The fabrication process is presented and compared in detail with the simulation. AFM images of four-electrode nanojunctions down to 10 nm are presented. These nanojunctions are well adapted to interconnect hybrid molecular electronic devices.

Conductivity Measurements of Paddlewheel Dimetal Complexes with Metal-Metal Multiple Bonds

“…A 240 nm Au layer was then evaporated on top of Cr layer. The Au layer has to be sufficiently thick for wire bonding of contact pads with the package [11]. The chip is adhered to suitable packaging to make it robust for measurement.…”

Low temperature nanoscale electronic transport on the MoS2 surface

“…Furthermore, by using the high resolution SEM attached to the chamber (operated at low current), we can continuously vary the tip-to-tip distance down to a few tens of nanometers (50nm in the present case). The UHV cleanliness highlighted here is a pre-requisite for successful atom-by-atom extraction to construct the atomic wires and this is not typically catered for in standard nanolithography techniques 25 .…”

“…No further heat treatment or cleaning procedure is applied to the surface before making the measurements. In conventional transport measurements involving devices using micro (or nano) lithography techniques to fabricate the surface contact pads, contamination induced by the resists or surface modifications induced by e-beam lithography cannot be neglected 25 . In order to avoid all these issues, we measure the transport characteristics in UHV by using individual STM tips as electrodes in top contact configuration.…”

Viewing Angle Control of a Fringe-Field Switching Cell by Electrical Tilting of Liquid Crystal

“…Among these 4-terminal devices, the ones showing a channel semiconducting behavior can be used as a mesoscopic hybrid molecular transistor with a 160 nA/V transconductance. There is no nanolithography obstacle to miniaturise these 4-terminal devices with 10 nm inter-electrode nanojunctions [18]. But the conductance control phenomenon will have to remain active down to these dimensions.…”