Laser explosion-based fast lithography to modulate silicon crystals

Abstract

Laser direct lithography allows for the maskless production and alignment of nanocrystals. However, laser-induced crystal growth requires a complex process of nucleation followed by growth that takes a long time, resulting in low efficiency. Here, we used a laser explosion to pre-grow silicon seed crystals in a silicon precursor solution, simplified crystal growth and increased the lithography efficiency. By operating the laser exposure time, the crystal size can be controlled, and even inducing the fusion of nanocrystalline into single crystal grains. As a proof of concept, we fabricated silicon quantum dot architectures with a direct lithography rate of 350 µm/s by this strategy, achieving quantum dot growth within ∼0.54 milliseconds time in an ambient environment. The silicon quantum dots could be contact and fusion through a laser modulation, ultimately forming single silicon microcrystals within the architectures of lithography.