Summary of recent research on gas cluster ion beam process technology

Gas cluster ion beam (GCIB) process has been studied for more than 15 years. But the interest in GCIB process has increased only recently, driven by the nano-technology program. Gas cluster ion bombardment have been applied to offer potential for various industrial applications due to its unique characteristics, i.e. the low energy bombardment, lateral sputtering, surface cleaning and smoothing, and low temperature thin film formation. This paper reviews the current fundamental research related to the GCIB-solid interactions as well as their applications in modern magnetic, optical and semiconductor device fabrications.