Fabrication of conducting Si nanowire arrays

The recent development of the superlattice nanowire pattern transfer technique allows for the fabrication of arrays of nanowires at a diameter, pitch, aspect ratio, and regularity beyond competing approaches. Here, we report the fabrication of conducting Si nanowire arrays with wire widths and pitches of 10–20 and 40–50 nm, respectively, and resistivity values comparable to the bulk through the selection of appropriate silicon-on-insulator substrates, careful reactive-ion etching, and spin-on glass doping. These results promise the realization of interesting nanoelectronic circuits and devices, including chemical and biological sensors, nanoscale mosaics for electronics, and ultradense field-effect transistor arrays.