Methods for designing, fabricating, and predicting shape formations in a material
AssigneeCalifornia Institute of Technology
InventorsMichael Shearn, Michael David Henry, Axel Scherer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for designing, fabricating, and predicting a desired structure in and/or on a host material through defining etch masks and etching the host material is provided. The desired structure can be micro- or nanoscale structures, such as suspended nanowires and corresponding supporting pillars, and can be defined one layer at a time. Arbitrary desired structures can also be defined and obtained through etching. Further, given the desired structure, a starting structure can be predicted where etching of the starting structure yields the desired structure.
Claims17
A method for fabricating a desired structure in and/or on a host material, comprising:
- providing shapes to define the desired structure in and/or on the host material;
- defining one or more etch masks in and/or on the host material via addition or removal of a masking material according to each of the shapes;
- etching the host material with an etch chemistry to fabricate the desired structure, wherein the etch chemistry selectively etches the host material with respect to the one or more etch masks and selectively etches regions of the host material associated with at least one shape in the desired structure but absent the one or more etch masks;
- and
- iteratively performing the defining and the etching to fabricate the desired structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.