Quantentechnologie

Resist-assisted atom lithography with group III elements, specifically with gallium and indium, is demonstrated. Self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of nonanethiols prepared on thin sputtered gold films were exposed to a beam of neutral gallium and indium atoms through a physical mask. The interaction of the Ga and In atoms with the nonanethiol layer, followed by a wet etching process, creates well defined structures on the gold film, with features below 100 nm. The threshold of the lithographic process was estimated by optical methods and found to be around 3 gallium atoms and 12 indium atoms per thiol molecule. Our experiments suggest that resist-assisted atom lithography can be realized with group III elements and possibly extended to new neutral atomic species.

The atom pencil we describe here is a versatile tool that writes arbitrary structures by atomic deposition in a serial lithographic process. This device consists of a transversely laser-cooled and collimated cesium atomic beam that passes through a 4-pole atom-flux concentrator and impinges on to micron- and sub-micron-sized apertures. The aperture translates above a fixed substrate and enables the writing of sharp features with sizes down to 280 nm. We have investigated the writing and clogging properties of an atom pencil tip fabricated from silicon oxide pyramids perforated at the tip apex with a sub-micron aperture.

We present saturation and polarization laser spectroscopy experiments of indium vapor with a single color on the 410 nm transition and with two colors at 410 and 451 nm. The spectra observed by polarization spectroscopy are discussed in terms of a quantitative model. The line shapes observed with two-color spectroscopy can phenomenologically be described taking into account hyperfine changing collisions, velocity changing collisions, and dark resonances. As an application, we actively stabilized a 410 nm diode laser on the resonances of saturation and polarization spectroscopy, and obtained long term frequency stabilities in the 100 kHz–1 MHz range.

The method of neutral atom lithography allows one to transfer to a substrate a 2D intensity modulation of an atomic beam imposed by an inhomogeneous light field. The complexity of the pattern depends on the properties of the light field constructed from the superposition of multiple laser beams. For the design of suitable light fields we present a mathematical model with a corresponding numerical simulation of the so-called inverse problem. Furthermore, details of an experiment carried out with a holographically reconstructed light field are discussed.