FEBID 3D-Nanoprinting at Low Substrate Temperatures: Pushing the Speed While Keeping the Quality

Nanofabrication using Focused Electron Beam Induced Deposition (FEBID) has made great progress in the past fewyears on several areas, which allowed to explore new fields for applications. Recent advances have unlocked theprecise fabrication of complex, freestanding 3D architectures at the nanoscale [1], elevating FIB/SEM dual beammicroscopes to the status of true 3D nanoprinters. Although 3D-FIBID/FEBID is superior to other direct-write methodsin many aspects [2] such as high flexibility in design, material and functionality, the low deposition speed inhibitslarge-scale production as needed for most industrial applications. The limiting factor for the growth rates is the localavailability of precursor molecules. For flat 2D-deposits, the growth rates can be significantly enhanced by coolingthe substrate temperature to cryogenic conditions (Cryo-FEBID) [3], an approach, which is not applicable for thefabrication of complex 3-dimensional geometries due to the missing precursor diffusion towards the growth front [4].For 3D-FEBID growth, it was found that local heating by the electron beam itself can affect the precursors residencetime at the growth front, which changes the effective coverage up to a point, where further growth becomesunstable [4].