Catalyst Self-Assembly for Scalable Patterning of Sub 10 nm Ultrahigh Aspect Ratio Nanopores in Silicon

Nanoporous silicon (NPSi) has received significant attention for its potential to contribute to a large number of applications, but has not yet been extensively implemented because of the inability of current state-of-the-art nanofabrication techniques to achieve sufficiently small pore size, high aspect ratio, and process scalability. In this work we describe the fabrication of NPSi via a modified metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) process in which silica-shell gold nanoparticle (SiO2-AuNP) monolayers self-assemble from solution onto a silicon substrate. Exposure to the MACE etchant solution results in the rapid consumption of the SiO2 spacer shell, leaving well-spaced arrays of bare AuNPs on the substrate surface. Particles then begin to catalyze the etching of nanopore arrays without interruption, resulting in the formation of highly anisotropic individual pores. The excellent directionality of pore formation is thought to be promoted by the homogeneous interparticle spacing of the gold core nanocatalysts, which allow for even hole injection and subsequent etching along preferred crystallographic orientations. Electron microscopy and image analysis confirm the ability of the developed technique to produce micrometer-scale arrays of sub 10 nm nanopores with narrow size distributions and aspect ratios of over 100:1. By introducing a scalable process for obtaining high aspect ratio pores in a novel size regime, this work opens the door to implementation of NPSi in numerous devices and applications.