DRIE process optimization to fabricate vertical silicon nanowires using gold nanoparticles as masks

Silicon nanowires have applications in various fields, e.g. vertical transistors, chemical or biological sensors, energy conversion, and storage devices. So far they have typically been obtained by bottom-up methods such as vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) synthesis, starting from metal nanoparticles. In this study, silicon nanowires are fabricated by dry reactive-ion etching using gold nanoparticles as a mask. Starting with the Bosch process, the cycle of SF6 plasma etching and C4F8 plasma deposition was optimized to control the quality of the resulting silicon nanowires.