Nanostructures of various dimensionalities from plasma and neutral fluxes

Abstract

A complex multi-scale model and numerical simulations are used to demonstrate, by simulating the development of patterns of nanotips, nanowalls, nanoislands and nanovoids of a characteristic size of 5–100 nm, a greater degree of determinism in the formation of various nanostructures by using the low-density, low-temperature plasma-based processes. It is shown that in the plasma, in contrast to the neutral gas-based processes, one can synthesize nanostructures of various dimensionalities and shapes with a larger surface density, desired geometrical parameters and narrower size distribution functions. This effect is mainly attributed to strong ion focusing by irregular electric fields in the nanopatterns, which effectively redistributes the influxes of plasma-generated building units and thus provides a selective control of their delivery to the growing nanostructures.