An approach to semiconductor nanostructure fabrication using atomic force microscopy probe

Abstract

With the advent of newly invented instruments, many different approaches to the nanostructure fabrication are available nowadays. One of them is to use scanning probes as a lithography tool, which allows an easy and reliable fabrication of nanometer scale features. The combination of the AFM direct patterning and subsequent quantum dot (QD) growth enables flexible control of the location and the size of the QDs. In this paper, we use sharp atomic force microscopy (AFM) probe to break directly the GaAs surface, where arbitrary patterns are fabricated. And then InAs QDs are subsequently grown by a metal organic chemical vapor deposition technique. It is found that the detailed shape of the QD distribution and the size of the QDs depend on the geometrical properties such as the sidewall angle, the spacing, and the width of the patterns.