Dimensional control in corner lithography for wafer-scale fabrication of nano-apertures

Author

Burouni, Narges ; Berenschot, Erwin ; Elwenspoek, Miko ; Tas, Niels

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Math. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands

fYear

2011

fDate

20-23 Feb. 2011

Firstpage

940

Lastpage

943

Abstract

In this paper we investigate a new method to fabricate 3D-oriented nanostructures in wafer scale, and apply it to fabricate a nano-apertures at the apex of a pyramid. A number of new technologies require the use of apertures to serve as electrical, nano fluidic or optical probes. Controlling the size of the aperture is one of the key problems in fabrication process. Our approach is based on corner lithography and offers wafer scale control of the size of the aperture in diameters less than 1 μm. We show how to control the size of the nano-aperture by timed isotropic etching of silicon nitride, which serves as a mask for the aperture formation.

Keywords

etching; nanofabrication; nanofluidics; nanolithography; 3D-oriented nanostructures; corner lithography; dimensional control; electrical probes; nanoapertures; nanofluidic probes; optical probes; timed isotropic etching; wafer-scale fabrication; Apertures; Etching; Hafnium; Iron; Nanobioscience; Silicon; 3D; Corner Lithography; LOCOS; Nano-aperture; Nano-fabrication; Silicon nitride;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems (NEMS), 2011 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Kaohsiung

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-775-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NEMS.2011.6017509

Filename

6017509