Molecular layer etching could enable fabricating and controlling material geometries at the nanoscale, which could open new doors in microelectronics and extend beyond traditional Moore's Law scaling.

Chemistry Matters- Molecular Layer Etching of Metalcone Films Using Lithium Organic Salts and Trimethylaluminum

Together with molecular layer deposition (MLD), a deposition technique, MLE can be used to design microscopic architectures. These approaches are analogs of atomic layer deposition (ALD) and atomic layer etching (ALE), the more commonly applied techniques for fabricating microelectronics. However, unlike atomic layering techniques, which deal exclusively with inorganic films, MLD and MLE can be used to grow and remove organic films as well.