Harvard College

Mengyan Shen

Eric Mazur

The present invention generally provides semiconductor substrates having submicron-sized surface features generated by irradiating the surface with ultra short laser pulses. In one aspect a method of processing a semiconductor substrate is disclosed that includes placing at least a portion of a surface of the substrate in contact with a fluid, and exposing that surface portion to one or more femtosecond pulses so as to modify the topography of that portion. The modification can include, e.g., generating a plurality of submicron-sized spikes in an upper layer of the surface.

Femtosecond laser-induced formation of submicrometer spikes on a semiconductor substrate

The present invention generally provides semiconductor substrates having submicron-sized surface features generated by irradiating the surface with ultra short laser pulses. In one aspect, a method of processing a semiconductor substrate is disclosed that includes placing at least a portion of a surface of the substrate in contact with a fluid, and exposing that surface portion to one or more femtosecond pulses so as to modify the topography of that portion. The modification can include, e.g., generating a plurality of submicron-sized spikes in an upper layer of the surface.

The present invention generally provides semiconductor substrates having submicronsized surface features generated by irradiating the surface with ultra short laser pulses. In one aspect, a method of processing a semiconductor substrate is disclosed that includes placing at least a portion of a surface of the substrate in contact with a fluid, and exposing that surface portion to one or more femtosecond pulses so as to modify the topography of that portion. The modification can include, e.g., generating a plurality of submicron-sized spikes in an upper layer of the surface.

In one aspect, the present invention provides a method of processing a substrate, e.g., a semiconductor substrate, by irradiating a surface of the substrate (or at least a portion of the surface) with a first set of polarized short laser pulses while exposing the surface to a fluid to generate a plurality of structures on the surface, e.g., within a top layer of the surface. Subsequently, the structured surface can be irradiated with another set of polarized short laser pulses having a different polarization than that of the initial set while exposing the structured surface to a fluid, e.g., the same fluid initially utilized to form the structured surface or a different fluid. In many embodiments, the second set of polarized laser pulses cause the surface structures formed by the first set to break up into smaller-sized structures, e.g., nano-sized features such as nano-sized rods.

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Belmont, MA, United States of America

Mengyan Shen