Pattern generation with cesium atomic beams at nanometer scales

We have demonstrated that a cesium atomic beam can be used to pattern a gold surface using a self assembling monolayer (SAM) as a resist. A 12.5 mu m period mesh was used as a proximity mask for the atomic beam. The cesium atoms locally change the wetability of the SAM, which allows a wet etching reagent to remove the underlying gold in the exposed regions. An edge resolution of better than 100 nm was obtained. The experiment suggests that this method can either be used as a sensitive position detector with nanometer resolution in atom optics, or for nanostructuring in a resist technique.