The ability of the atomic force microscope ~AFM! to realize lithography patterns on silicon surfaces is widely known and leads to the formation of silicon nanostructures after an etching step. In this article, we aim at improving the fabrication process to yield silicon nanowires with minimum lateral dimensions for the realization of Coulomb blockade based devices. First, we focus on the AFM li...

We have experimentally explored a new approach to local anodic oxidation (LAO) of a semiconductor heterostructures by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM). We have applied LAO to an InGaP/AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure. Although LAO is usually applied to oxidize GaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs-based heterostructures, the use of the InGaP/AlGaAs/GaAs system is more advantageous. The difference lies in the use o...

An innovative fabrication method to produce a macroporous Si surface by employing an anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) nanopore array layer as an etching template is presented. Combining AAO with a reactive ion etching (RIE) processes, a homogeneous and macroporous silicon surface can be effectively configured by modulating AAO process parameters and alumina film thickness, thus hopefully replacing ...

Porous CdSe layers have been produced by anodic etching of crystalline substrates in a HCl solution. Anodization under in situ UV illumination resulted in the formation of uniformly distributed parallel pores with a diameter of 30 nm, stretching perpendicularly to the initial surface. At the same time, pronounced nonuniformities in the spatial distribution of pores were evidenced in samples sub...

We report on Si nanopatterning through an on-chip self-assembled porous anodic alumina (PAA) masking layer using reactive ion etching based on fluorine chemistry. Three different gases/gas mixtures were investigated: pure SF6, SF6/O2, and SF6/CHF3. For the first time, a systematic investigation of the etch rate and process anisotropy was performed. It was found that in all cases, the etch rate ...

NiO-nanoflakes (NiO-NFs) grafted Ni-nanorod (Ni-NR) arrays stuck out of the porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template are achieved by a combinatorial process of AAO-confined electrodeposition of Ni-NRs, selectively etching part of the AAO template to expose the Ni-NRs, wet-etching the exposed Ni-NRs in ammonia to obtain Ni(OH)2-NFs grafted onto the cone-shaped Ni-NRs, and annealing to transfo...

Screw-shaped endosseous implants that have a turned surface of commercially pure titanium have a disadvantage of requiring a long time for osseointegration while those implants have shown long-term clinical success in single and multiple restorations. Titanium implant surfaces have been modified in various ways to improve biocompatibility and accelerate osseointegration, which results in a shor...

In this paper we describe the design and testing of a micro piezoresistive pressure sensor for a Tire Pressure Measurement System (TPMS) which has the advantages of a minimized structure, high sensitivity, linearity and accuracy. Through analysis of the stress distribution of the diaphragm using the ANSYS software, a model of the structure was established. The fabrication on a single silicon su...

This paper presents the fabrication and characterization of a resonant pressure microsensor based on SOI-glass wafer-level vacuum packaging. The SOI-based pressure microsensor consists of a pressure-sensitive diaphragm at the handle layer and two lateral resonators (electrostatic excitation and capacitive detection) on the device layer as a differential setup. The resonators were vacuum package...