Sub-Micron Patterning Titanium Nitride By Focused Ion-Beam Technique

Abstract

Titanium nitride (TiN) thin films have low electrical resistivity, good chemical and metallurgical stability, and exceptional mechanical properties. As such, we are interested in exploring TiN for use as mold material for micro-and nano replication. Focused ion beam (FIB) technique was successfully used to fabricate sub-micron sized pattern on a TiN/Si(100) wafer. This mask-free fabrication technique takes advantage of the kinetic precision of FIB; the energy of ions used was 40 KeV. The width and depth of each trench in the TiN mold are 390 nm and 280 nm respectively.