Microelectronic Engineering 57–58 (2001) 903–907 www.elsevier.com / locate / mee Nanoscale patterning of self-assembled monolayers by e-beam lithography a, b a b b * Thomas Weimann , Wolfgang Geyer , Peter Hinze ,Volker Stadler , Wolfgang Eck , b ¨ ¨ Armin Golzhauser a Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany b ¨ Angewandte Physikalische Chemie, Universitat Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 253, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany Abstract The resolution of e-beam lithography in standard resists is limited by the size of the molecules in the resist. High resolution e-beam resists therefore should not only show a specific sensitivity to electrons but also be thin and composed of small subunits. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) fulfil these criteria because they are homogeneous, highly ordered films of amphiphilic molecules with a typical thickness of 1–2 nm and an intermolecular spacing of 1–0.5 nm. We demonstrate that gold nanostructures can be fabricated using aliphatic and aromatic thiol self-assembled monolayers as positive and negative electron beam resists.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Self-assembled monolayer; Nanostructure; e-beam lithography 1. Introduction Because of the size of the molecules and the forward scattering of the electrons in the resist material the achievable resolution of e-beam lithography is mainly limited by the resist. To circumvent these restrictions, new resist materials and patterning strategies are called for. Self- assembled monolayers are homogeneous, highly ordered films of organic molecules which can be modified by e-beam radiation [1–3]. They are covalently fixed on a surface and can be tailored to adsorb on different materials such as noble metals, semiconductors and oxides [4]. Due to the thickness of these films in the order of 1–2 nm, scattering effects in the SAMs are negligible. SAMs can be functionalized to tune the interactions with electrons [5]. The molecules that form a SAM can be divided into three different functional parts: a head group which strongly binds to a substrate, a tail group that forms the outer surface of the film and a spacer linking head and tail. The spacer is responsible for the intermolecular spacing and the specific reaction of a SAM to a lithographic tool. In aliphatic SAMs whose spacer consists of a hydrocarbon chain, low-energy electrons induce a cleavage *Corresponding author. E-mail address: thomas.weimann@ptb.de (T. Weimann). 0167-9317 / 01 / $ – see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0167-9317(01)00454-3