Growth finally begins by opening the doors (shutters) above the e-gun sources, allowing Si and Ge atoms to "grow" new crystal. With the proper flow of atoms, it is easy to open and close the doors quickly enough that only a single atomic plane (of Si or Ge or a mixture of both) will grow. In this way, we have grown over 1000 different atomically thin layers on a wafer in a single, multi-hour, growth run.
With the addition of FIB pre-patterning, we hope these layers will soon "self-organize" themselves into patterns replicating those we program into the FIB tool.
