Nanolithography based on the formation and manipulation of nanometer-size organic liquid menisci.

Nanometer-size menisci of organic liquids such as octane and 1-octene have been formed and used to confine chemical reactions. The application of a bias voltage between a conductive scanning probe tip separated a few nanometers from a silicon surface allows the field-induced formation of nanometer-size liquid menisci that can subsequently be used to fabricate nanometer-size structures. We report the fabrication of sub-10-nm nanostructures in 0.1 ms. Growth kinetics studies reveal that the nanostructure composition and its formation mechanism are organic-solvent-dependent. Both voltage polarities can be used to grow nanostructures, although the growth rate is significantly higher for positively biased samples. These experiments allow us to produce in the same sample two chemically different nanostructures that are easily addressed and positioned and have sub-10-nm features.