Passivation of dangling bonds on hydrogenated Si(100)-2$\times$1: a possible method for error correction in hydrogen lithography

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a method using combined STM and AFM techniques to passivate individual dangling bonds on hydrogenated silicon surfaces, enabling error correction in hydrogen lithography.

Contribution

It introduces a novel atom manipulation technique for erasing and passivating dangling bonds on silicon surfaces, improving lithography accuracy.

Findings

Successful hydrogen passivation of individual dangling bonds.

Development of a method for error correction in hydrogen lithography.

Creation of Si- and H-terminated tips for precise atom manipulation.

Abstract

Using combined low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), we demonstrate hydrogen passivation of individual, selected dangling bonds (DBs) on a hydrogen-passivated Si(100)-2$\times$1 surface (H-Si) by atom manipulation. This method allows erasing of DBs and thus provides an error-correction scheme for hydrogen lithography. Si-terminated tips (Si tips) for hydrogen desorption and H-terminated tips (H tips) for hydrogen passivation are both created by deliberate contact to the H-Si surface and are assigned by their characteristic contrast in AFM. DB passivation is achieved by transferring the H atom that is at the apex of an H tip to the DB, reestablishing a locally defect-free H-Si surface.