The influence of humidity on the kinetics of local anodic oxidation

Abstract

In this paper the influence of relative humidity on fabrication of nanostructures at GaAs (100) surfaces by local anodic oxidation (LAO) is reported. The attention was paid both to the dimensions of oxide nanolines prepared at different relative humidities for tip-surface voltages of 6 - 9 V and tip speeds of 10 - 200 nm/s, and to the profiles corresponding to line trenches (etched in HCl after the nanoxidation). Contrary to the expectations the height and the half-width of oxide nanolines did not increase with relative humidity in the whole interval from 35% to 90%, but for lower relative humidities (< 50%) the lines were comparable in size to those prepared at 90%. However, this was accompanied with instabilities in the oxidation process resulting most probably from enhanced size variations of the water meniscus between the tip and the surface at these low humidities.