Wednesday, March 21, 2007

US Patent 7192533 - Multimaterial nanowire fabrication

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7192533.pdf

Most often nanowire fabrication produces nanowires formed of the same type of material throughout the nanowire length but there is a desire for nanowires formed with multiple doping states or other divergent material properties to facilitate transistor, sensor or other device applications. This patent from Philips claims a basic method of constructing nanowires of pnp or npn material layer configurations. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of manufacturing nanowires, comprising the steps of providing a patterned etching mask at a surface of a semiconductor substrate, and etching the semiconductor substrate so as to form nanowires In a direction substantially perpendicular to the surface of the semiconductor substrate, characterized in that the semiconductor substrate comprises a first layer of a first material, second layer of a second material, and a third layer of the first material, the second layer sandwiched between the first and third layers; and etching takes place through the first, second and third layers for forming the nanowires such that the nanowires comprise a first region of the first material, a second region of the second material and a third region of the first material.

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