Abstract

The small dimensions of novel electronic and optoelectronic device structures and their abruptly and unconventionally changing material compositions require high levels of spatial and kinetic control of the surface chemical reactions which are involved in the materials' growth or modification. These requirements exclude high temperature processes based on thermally activated chemical reactions. Directed energetic beams (electrons, photons, ions), however, can induce reactions at low temperatures, as well as provide for spatial and kinetic control in microfabrication processes. Electrons and photons of sufficient energy can cause fragmentation and desorption of adsorbed molecules or fragments of them, by inducing electronic excitations to dissociative states¹. The surface species after such excitations are mostly of highly reactive radical character, which readily react with the substrate and with other radical or molecular species in the adsorbed layer. The formation of such reactive surface species in a controlled way can provides a basis for non-thermal selective area film growth.

© 1991 Optical Society of America