Micromachined silicon suspended wires with submicrometric dimensions

Silicon suspended wires with a cross section of about 0.25 mum(2) have been fabricated by means of a simple process, starting from a SOI n-type wafer. Standard lithography, isotropic and anisotropic etchings were used. The pr ocess requires only two masks with a minimum dimension of 4 mum. After the definition of the suspended structures a further oxidation step was perform ed in order to reduce the silicon core dimensions. Particular care was devo ted to the rinsing step to avoid any sticking problem to the substrate. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BY. All rights reserved.