Self-assembled monolayers exposed by metastable argon and metastable helium for neutral atom lithography and atomic beam imaging

We used a beam of noble gas atoms in a metastable excited state to expose a thin (1.5 nm) self-assembled monolayer resist applied over a gold-coated silicon wafer. We determined exposure damage as a function of dose of metastable atoms by processing the samples in a wet-chemical etch to remove the gold from unprotected regions and then measuring the reflectivity with a laser and observing the microstructure with an atomic force microscope. We found that the minimum dose required to damage the resist substantially was 1.7(3)×1015 atoms/cm2 for metastable helium, and 25(7)×1015 atoms/cm2 for metastable argon.