Silicon nanowire circuits fabricated by AFM oxidation nanolithography

We report a top-down process for the fabrication of single-crystalline silicon nanowire circuits and devices. Local oxidation nanolithography is applied to define very narrow oxide masks on top of a silicon-on-insulator substrate. In a plasma etching, the nano-oxide mask generates a nanowire with a rectangular section. The nanowire width coincides with the lateral size of the mask. In this way, uniform and well-defined transistors with channel widths in the 10-20 nm range have been fabricated. The nanowires can be positioned with sub-100 nm lateral accuracy. The transistors exhibit an on/off current ratio of 10(5). The atomic force microscope nanolithography offers full control of the nanowire's shape from straight to circular or a combination of them. It also enables the integration of several nanowires within the same circuit. The nanowire transistors have been applied to detect immunological processes.