The authors demonstrate the fabrication of suspended nanowires and doubly clamped beams by using a focused ion beam implanted Ga etch mask
followed by an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching of
silicon. This method will demonstrate how a two-step, completely dry
fabrication sequence can be tuned to generate nanomechanical structures
on either silicon substrates or silicon on insulator (SOI). This method
was used to generate lateral nanowires suspended between 2 µm scaled
structures with lengths up to 16 µm and widths down to 40 nm on a
silicon substrate. The authors also fabricate 10 µm long doubly
clamped beams on SOIs that are 20 nm thick and a minimum of 150 nm
wide. In situ electrical measurements of the beams demonstrate a
reduction of resistivity from > 37.5 Ω cm down to 0.25 Ω cm.
Transmission electron microscopy for quantifying both surface roughness
and crystallinity of the suspended nanowires was performed. Finally, a
dose array for repeatable fabrication of a desired beam width was also
experimentally determined
