• Jebril, Seid
• Cimalla, Volker
• Cengher, Dorin
• Adelung, Rainer
• Raudra, Shiva Kumar
• Ambacher, Oliver
• Paretkar, Dadhichi
• Wille, Sebastian
• Elbahri, Mady

Abstract

<p>The integration of nanostructures like nanowires into working devices is often a difficult task. Even though demonstration devices with fascinating properties have been build [1], they are rather far away from being integrated into microelectronic devices. Recently, we successfully demonstrated [2] how thin film fracture can be beneficially used to serve as a template for the fabrication of well aligned nanowires. Here we demonstrate how this approach can be used to integrate nanowires into a conventional silicon microstructure. We use silicon wafers coated with a microstructured photoresist thin film. At special structured predetermined breaking points, designed by conventional lithography steps, nanocracks can be fabricated by using cold gases, see fig. 1a and b. Those cracks serve as a template for the further processing. Most simple, they can just be filled with metal by sputter deposition, resulting in nanowires (see fig. 1c) connected with microstructured power lines. Such an approach can be chosen to fabricate nanosensors. By applying a more sophisticated deposition technique, parallel nanowires can be formed, even with different materials, see fig. 1d. Here, the nanocrack is used as a nanoscale shadow mask. Another variant is the formation of nanochannels by etching into the material. Nanochannels with a width of less than 40 nm could be fabricated, see fig. 1e. Moreover, we demonstrate this process also on flexible polymer substrates. First demonstration circuits, applications in the field of optics, and nanofluidic as well as the details of the fabrication process will be discussed.</p>

Topics

• Deposition
• impedance spectroscopy
• microstructure
• polymer
• thin film
• laser emission spectroscopy
• crack
• Silicon
• etching
• lithography
• aligned