Atomic and close-to-atomic scale manufacturing: status and challenges

Next-generation lithography techniques such as Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography have started to reach their physical limits and will not be able to meet the requirements of future Post-Moore Era Integrated Circuit chips that will be based on quantum, photonic, and DNA computing. These future chips and the next generation of quantum products will require sub-10nm and even atomic-scale functional features. Promising candidates for atomic and close-to-atomic scale manufacturing include well-established tip-based techniques such as Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), however, they suffer from severely low throughput, although parallel tips have been suggested to increase the throughput. The integration of these techniques with others such as AFM in Scanning Electron Microscopy has created new hybrid techniques that have greatly enhanced the capabilities of the standalone process. On the other hand, higher throughput techniques like atomic layer etching (ALE) suffer from poor process control and defects despite being promising candidates due to the self-limiting nature of the processes. Studies into laser processing techniques are being investigated to test the feasibility of laser beam-based atomic scale precision manufacturing. Furthermore, the recent progress in quantum simulations has promoted the development of the optical tweezer towards atomic scale manufacturing.