摘要
Silicon nitride (Si3N4)(Si3N4) is a very robust material against oxidation and is typically used as an oxidation mask. Here, we report atomic-force microscope(AFM)-based local oxidation of Si3N4Si3N4 and its applications in selective-areaepitaxial growth using chemical-vapor deposition. High growth selectivity is accomplished in this work by employing a SiO2/Si3N4SiO2/Si3N4 bilayer mask structure, which is formed by locally oxidizing the Si3N4Si3N4 surface (for defining the growthwindows), depositing a blanket SiO2SiO2 layer, and then selectively removing SiO2SiO2in the growth windows. High-resolution transmission electron microscopyimages reveal that the selectively deposited Si structures can be grown with a high degree of crystalline perfection, while excellent size uniformity is confirmed by large-area AFM images.