Focused electron beam induced etching and in-situ monitoring: Fabrication of sub-beam sized nanoholes

In this work, the control of focused ion beam induced deposition (FEBIE) process is examined through fabrication of nanoholes on 10-nm-thin amorphous carbon (a-C) membrane using H₂O and XeF₂ precursor, and its in-situ stage current measurement. Nanoholes with diameters smaller than the beam size were successfully obtained. Results indicate the feasibility of fabrication of nanoholes with sub-nm diameter in the future.