Blocking the lateral film growth at the nanoscale in area-selective atomic layer deposition.

Area-selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) allows the growth of highly uniform thin inorganic films on certain parts of the substrate while preventing the film growth on other parts. Although the selective ALD growth is working well at the micron and submicron scale, it has failed at the nanoscale, especially near the interface where there is growth on one side and no-growth on the other side. The reason is that methods so far solely rely on the chemical modification of the substrate, while neglecting the occurrence of lateral ALD growth at the nanoscale.