Nanodicing Single Crystalline Silicon Nanowire Arrays

Here, we demonstrate a novel method for the production of single-crystal Si nanowire arrays based on the top-down carving of Si-nanowall structures from a donor substrate, and their subsequent controlled and selective harvesting into a sacrificial solid material block. Nanosectioning of the nanostructures-embedding block by ultramicrotome leads to the formation of size, shape, and orientation-controlled high quality nanowire arrays. Additionally, we introduce a novel approach that enables transferring the nanowire arrays to any acceptor substrate, while preserving their orientation, and placing them on defined locations. Furthermore, crystallographic analysis and electrical measurements were performed, proving that the quality of the sectioned nanowires, which derive from their original crystalline donor substrate, are remarkably preserved.