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Wafer-Scale, Highly-Ordered Silicon Nanowires Produced by Step-and-Flash Imprint Lithography and Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2012

Jian-Wei Ho
Affiliation:
NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Qixun Wee
Affiliation:
Singapore-MIT Alliance, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Jarrett Dumond
Affiliation:
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore.
Li Zhang
Affiliation:
NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Keyan Zang
Affiliation:
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore.
Wee Kiong Choi
Affiliation:
Singapore-MIT Alliance, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Andrew A. O. Tay
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Soo-Jin Chua
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
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Abstract

A combinatory approach of Step-and-Flash Imprint Lithography (SFIL) and Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching (MacEtch) was used to generate near perfectly-ordered, high aspect ratio silicon nanowires (SiNWs) on 4" silicon wafers. The ordering and shapes of SiNWs depends only on the SFIL nanoimprinting mould used, thereby enabling arbitary SiNW patterns not possible with nanosphere and interference lithography (IL) to be generated. Very densely packed SiNWs with periodicity finer than that permitted by conventional photolithography can be produced. The height of SiNWs is, in turn, controlled by the etching duration. However, it was found that very high aspect ratio SiNWs tend to be bent during processing. Hexagonal arrays of SiNW with circular and hexagonal cross-sections of dimensions 200nm and less were produced using pillar and pore patterned SFIL moulds. In summary, this approach allows highlyordered SiNWs to be fabricated on a wafer-level basis suitable for semiconductor device manufacturing.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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References

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