Nanofluidic Channel Fabrication and Characterization by Micromachining
The well-established microfabrication techniques of complementary metallic oxide silicon (CMOS) selective oxidation and wafer-wafer fusion bonding were used to fabricate sub-micrometer silicon fluidic channels as small as 30 nm between extremely thin SiO2 top and bottom layers of 30 nm thicknesses. Trenches a few tens of nanometer deep were patterned in 10-cm diameter Si wafers by selective oxidation and their depth measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM); the AFM measured depths showed that the trench depth could be controlled to nanometer resolution. The resolution of the photolithography employed determined the trench width resolution. Nanochannels were formed with direct wafer-wafer fusion bonding. Channels of 30-nm depth or greater between the bonded wafer pair were nondestructively detected by a simple infrared (IR) image system; channels less than this depth collapsed for the overall channel geometry employed. Thus the nanofluidic structures survived the pressure and high temperature anneal of wafer bonding. Experimental results agree well with a theoretical prediction for which depths nanochannels would collapse.