Nanoscale ISFET (ion sensitive field-effect transistor) pH sensors are presented that produce the well-known sub-nernstian pH-response for silicon dioxide (SiO(2)) surfaces and near ideal nernstian sensitivity for alumina (Al(2)O(3)) surfaces. Titration experiments of SiO(2) surfaces resulted in a varying pH sensitivity ∼20 mV/pH for pH near 2 and >45 mV/pH for pH > 5. Measured pH responses from titrations of thin (15 nm) atomic layer deposited (ALD) alumina (Al(2)O(3)) surfaces on the nanoISFETs resulted in near ideal nernstian pH sensitivity of 57.8 ± 1.2 mV/pH (pH range: 2-10; T = 22 °C) and temperature sensitivity of 0.19 mV/pH °C (22 °C ≤ T ≤ 40 °C). A comprehensive analytical model of the nanoISFET sensor, which is based on the combined Gouy-Chapman-Stern and Site-Binding (GCS-SB) model, accompanies the experimental results and an extracted ΔpK ≈ 1.5 from the measured responses further supports the near ideal nernstian pH sensitivity.

We report a new low-cost top-down silicon nanowire fabrication technology requiring only conventional microfabrication processes including microlithography, oxidation, and wet anisotropic plane-dependent etching; high quality silicon nanowire arrays can be easily made in any conventional microfabrication facility without nanolithography or expensive equipment. Silicon nanowires with scalable lateral dimensions ranging from 200 nm down to 10-20 nm and lengths up to approximately 100 microm can be precisely formed with near-perfect monocrystalline cross sections, atomically smooth surfaces, and wafer-scale yields greater than 90% using a novel size reduction method where silicon nanowires can be controllably scaled to any dimension and doping concentration independent of large contacting regions from a continuous layer of crystalline silicon.

A new low-cost, top-down nanowire fabrication technology is presented not requiring nanolithography and suitable for any conventional microtechnology cleanroom facility. This novel wafer-scale process technology uses a combination of angled thin-film deposition and etching of a metal layer in a precisely defined cavity with a single micrometer-scale photolithography step. Electrically functional silicon and metallic nanowires with lengths up to several millimeters, lateral widths of 100 nm, and thicknesses 20 nm have been realized and tested. Device characterization includes a general description of device operation, electrochemical biasing, and sensitivity for sensor applications followed by electrical measurements showing linear i-v characteristics with specific contact resistivity rhoc approximately 4 x 10-4 ohm's cm2 and electrochemical behavior of the oxidized silicon nanowires is described with the site-binding model.

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A new family of electrothermally activated microactuators that can provide both large displacements and forces, are simple to fabricate, and are easily integrated with a large variety of microelectronic and microfluidic components are presented. The actuators use the high volumetric expansion of a sealed, surface micromachined patch of paraffin heated near its melting point to deform a sealing diaphragm. Two types of actuators have been fabricated using a simple three mask fabrication process. The first device structure consists of a 9 m thick circularly patterned paraffin layer ranging in diameter from 400 to 800 m all covered with a 4-m-thick metallized p-xylylene sealing diaphragm. All fabricated devices produced a 2.7-m-peak center deflection, consistent with a simple first order theory. The second actuator structure uses a constrained volume reservoir that magnifies the diaphragm deflection producing consistently 3.2 m center diaphragm deflection with a 3-m-thick paraffin actuation layer. Microactuators were constructed on both glass and silicon substrates. The actuators fabricated on glass substrates used between 50-200 mW of electrical power with response times ranging between 30-50 ms. The response time for silicon devices was much faster (3-5 ms) at the expense of a larger electrical power (500-2000 mW).[724]