Silicon nanowire sensor by mix and match lithography process: Fabrication and characterization

Abstract

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) have attracted significant interest in the study because of their potential to impact applications from nanoscale electronics to biomedical engineering. E-Beam Lithography couple with standard CMOS process is employed to fabricate the device. The exposure doses for the resist layer are varied in the range of 50 μC/cm2 to 180 μC/cm2 at 20 kV accelerating voltage with a beam current of 0.075 nA. The nanowires resist masks are well developed with dimension of less than 100 nm in width for the dose exposure parameters of 80 μC/cm2, 100 μC/cm2 and 120 μC/cm2. It is found that, the smallest SiNW with diameter of 65 nm is well aligned with electrode pads. In terms of sensitivity, the device with smaller nanowire is found to be more sensitive as a result of the high surface-to-volume ratio. These results demonstrate that the in-house fabricated SiNWs biosensor is capable as a platform for label-free biosensing.