Plasma-Assisted Nanofabrication: The Potential and Challenges in Atomic Layer Deposition and Etching
William Chiappim,
Benedito Botan Neto,
Michaela Shiotani,
Júlia Karnopp,
Luan Gonçalves,
João Pedro Chaves,
Argemiro da Silva Sobrinho,
Joaquim Pratas Leitão,
Mariana Fraga,
Rodrigo Pessoa
Affiliations
William Chiappim
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Aplicações, Faculdade de Engenharia e Ciências, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Av. Ariberto Pereira da Cunha, 333-Portal das Colinas, Guaratinguetá 12516-410, SP, Brazil
Benedito Botan Neto
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
Michaela Shiotani
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
Júlia Karnopp
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
Luan Gonçalves
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
João Pedro Chaves
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
Argemiro da Silva Sobrinho
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
Joaquim Pratas Leitão
Departamento de Física, I3N, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Mariana Fraga
Escola de Engenharia, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo 01302-907, SP, Brazil
Rodrigo Pessoa
Departamento de Física, Laboratório de Plasmas e Processos, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes 50, São José dos Campos 12228-900, SP, Brazil
The growing need for increasingly miniaturized devices has placed high importance and demands on nanofabrication technologies with high-quality, low temperatures, and low-cost techniques. In the past few years, the development and recent advances in atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes boosted interest in their use in advanced electronic and nano/microelectromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) device manufacturing. In this context, non-thermal plasma (NTP) technology has been highlighted because it allowed the ALD technique to expand its process window and the fabrication of several nanomaterials at reduced temperatures, allowing thermosensitive substrates to be covered with good formability and uniformity. In this review article, we comprehensively describe how the NTP changed the ALD universe and expanded it in device fabrication for different applications. We also present an overview of the efforts and developed strategies to gather the NTP and ALD technologies with the consecutive formation of plasma-assisted ALD (PA-ALD) technique, which has been successfully applied in nanofabrication and surface modification. The advantages and limitations currently faced by this technique are presented and discussed. We conclude this review by showing the atomic layer etching (ALE) technique, another development of NTP and ALD junction that has gained more and more attention by allowing significant advancements in plasma-assisted nanofabrication.