Sub-50 nm positioning of organic compounds onto silicon oxide patterns fabricated by local oxidation nanolithography

We present a process to fabricate molecule-based nanostructures by merging a bottom-up interaction and a top-down nanolithography. Direct nanoscale positioning arises from the attractive electrostatic interactions between the molecules and silicon dioxide nanopatterns. Local oxidation nanolithography is used to fabricate silicon oxide domains with variable gap separations ranging from 40 nm to several microns in length. We demonstrate that an ionic tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) semiconductor can be directed from a macroscopic liquid solution (1 µM) and selectively deposited onto predefined nanoscale regions of a 1 cm(2) silicon chip with an accuracy of 40 nm.