September 17, 2020

By varying the energy and dose of tightly focused electron beams, researchers have demonstrated the ability to both etch away and deposit high-resolution nanoscale patterns on two-dimensional layers of graphene oxide. The 3D additive/subtractive “sculpting” can be done without changing the chemistry of the electron beam deposition chamber, providing the foundation for building a new generation of nanoscale structures.

Based on focused electron beam-induced processing (FEBID) techniques, the work could allow production of 2D/3D complex nanostructures and functional nanodevices useful in quantum communications, sensing, and other applications. For oxygen-containing materials such as graphene oxide, etching can be done without introducing outside materials, using oxygen from the substrate.

“By timing and tuning the energy of the electron beam, we can activate interaction of the beam with oxygen in the graphene oxide to do etching, or interaction with hydrocarbons on the surface to create carbon deposition,” said Andrei Fedorov, professor and Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Chair in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “With atomic-scale control, we can produce complicated patterns using direct write-remove processes. Quantum systems require precise control on an atomic scale, and this could enable a host of potential applications.”

The technique was described August 7 in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences. Coauthors included researchers from Pusan National University in South Korea.

Creation of nanoscale structures is traditionally done using a multistep process of photoresist coating and patterning by photo- or electron beam lithography, followed by bulk dry/wet etching or deposition. Use of this process limits the range of functionalities and structural topologies that can be achieved, increases the complexity and cost, and risks contamination from the multiple chemical steps, creating barriers to fabrication of new types of devices from sensitive 2D materials.

FEBIP enables a material chemistry/site-specific, high-resolution multimode atomic scale processing and provides unprecedented opportunities for “direct-write,” single-step surface patterning of 2D nanomaterials with an in-situ imaging capability. It allows for realizing a rapid multiscale/multimode “top-down and bottom-up” approach, ranging from an atomic scale manipulation to a large-area surface modification on nano- and microscales.

By tuning the time and the energy of the electrons, you can either remove material or add material,” Fedorov said. “We did not expect that upon electron exposure of graphene oxide we would start etching patterns.

With graphene oxide, the electron beam introduces atomic scale perturbations into the 2D-arranged carbon atoms and uses embedded oxygen as an etchant to remove carbon atoms in precise patterns without introduction of a material into the reaction chamber. Fedorov said any oxygen-containing material might produce the same effect. “It’s like the graphene oxide carries its own etchant,” he said. “All we need to activate it is to ‘seed’ the reaction with electrons of appropriate energy.”