A fully-suspended, movable, single crystal silicon, deep submicron MOSFET for nanoelectromechanical applications

The authors have fabricated a novel, fully suspended, movable, deep-submicron single-crystal-substrate silicon (SCS) N-MOSFET using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. The SOI technology has been developed and characterized for making 100-nm-scale single crystal substrate-silicon cantilevers by oxidation for mechanical beams and tips (COMBAT). The COMBAT FET has been designed specifically for integration with nanoelectromechanical beams and tips for sensor and other applications. The entire process flow for simultaneously fabricating nanoelectromechanical beams and tunneling tips as well as the COMBAT FET requires only five masking steps including the initial electron-beam lithography step. The COMBAT FET device and process design offer a unique capability for the transistors to comprise the front-end electronics unit in a fully suspended and integrated nanoelectromechanical sensor system with reduced parasitic losses