Abstract
The electrostatically formed nanowire (EFN) gas sensor is based on a multiple-gate field-effect transistor with a conducting nanowire, which is not defined physically; rather, the nanowire is defined electrostatically post-fabrication, by using appropriate biasing of the different surrounding gates. The EFN is fabricated by using standard silicon processing technologies with relaxed design rules and, thereby, supports the realization of a low-cost and robust gas sensor, suitable for mass production. Although the smallest lithographic definition is higher than half a micrometer, appropriate tuning of the biasing of the gates concludes a conducting channel with a tunable diameter, which can transform the conducting channel into a nanowire with a diameter smaller than 20 nm. The tunable size and shape of the nanowire elicits tunable sensing parameters, such as sensitivity, limit of detection, and dynamic range, such that a single EFN gas sensor can perform with high sensitivity and a broad dynamic range by merely changing the biasing configuration. The current work reviews the design of the EFN gas sensor, its fabrication considerations and process flow, means of electrical characterization, and preliminary sensing performance at room temperature, underlying the unique and advantageous tunable capability of the device.
Highlights
The advancement in nanotechnology has elicited the development of nanosensors, which can detect the presence of nanoparticles and molecules or monitor various physical quantities on a nanometer scale
Performance degradation due to inhomogeneous dopant distribution and metal catalysts in bottom-up silicon nanowire (SiNW) does not occur in electrostatically formed nanowire (EFN) gas sensors, as the EFN exists inside a single crystalline silicon, which entails high bulk mobility, high signal-to-noise ratio, crystalline and homogeneous dopant distribution
The EFN gas sensor is a novel gas-sensing platform, which is of low cost, robust, and suitable
Summary
The advancement in nanotechnology has elicited the development of nanosensors, which can detect the presence of nanoparticles and molecules or monitor various physical quantities (pressure, temperature, etc.) on a nanometer scale. Such nanosensors can very efficiently couple to nanoscale interactions due to their nanoscale dimensions. The EFN sensor is fabricated by using conventional silicon fabrication techniques with relaxed design rules, resulting in low cost, robustness, and suitability for mass production. The below reviews the EFN sensor and discusses design considerations, fabrication technology, and sensing performance in terms of LOD, tunable sensitivity, and tunable dynamic detection range
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