Nitrogen as a carrier gas for regime control in focused electron beam induced deposition

Abstract This work reports on focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) using a custom built gas injection system (GIS) equipped with nitrogen as a gas carrier. We have deposited cobalt from Co2(CO)8, which is usually achieved by a heated GIS. In contrast to a heated GIS, our strategy allows avoiding problems caused by eventual temperature gradients along the GIS. Moreover, the use of the gas carrier enables a high control over process conditions and consequently the properties of the synthesized nanostructures. Chemical composition and growth rate are investigated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. We demonstrate that the N2 flux is strongly affecting the deposit growth rate without the need of heating the precursor in order to increase its vapour pressure. Particularly, AFM volume estimation of the deposited structures showed that increasing the nitrogen resulted in an enhanced deposition rate. The wide range of achievable precursor fluxes allowed to clearly distinguish between precursor- and electron-limited regime. With the carrier-based GIS an optimized deposition procedure with regards to the desired deposition regime has been enabled