A laser-cooled chromium atom beam for nanolithography

We have used a high collimated neutral chromium atomic beam to write periodic nanometer-scale structures by depositing an atomic beam of 52Cr through an off-resonant laser standing wave with the wavelength of 425.55 nm onto a silicon substrate. The resulting nanolines exhibit a period of 215 ± 3 nm with a height of 1 nm, which was half the wavelength of standing wave used to write the grating.