Manufacture of a nothing on insulator nano-structure with two Cr/Au nanowires separated by 18 nm air gap

Nanotechnology. 2020 Apr 17;31(27):275203. doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ab7c45. Epub 2020 Mar 3.

Abstract

Despite the huge number of previous studies of vacuum devices, nanoscale technologies open new paradigms. Vacuum nanodevices bring multiple advantages, such as air instead of a vacuum for the nanometric gap, strong non-linear characteristics, and a metal oxide semiconductor co-integration facility. This paper presents the manufacturing process and measured characteristics of a nano-device that uses a sub-36 nm gap between two Cr/Au nano-wires. In this way, the metal nano-wires replace the semiconductor nano-islands, while an air gap stands for the 'nothing' region of a first-time fabricated variant for a nothing on insulator device. The electron beam lithography mask-less technology is pushed to its technical limit to define a minimum 18 nm-wide gap between two Cr/Au nanowires. The main current-voltage curves are measured for this first real device called a nothing on insulator in the variant metal-air-metal, indicating 10 nA at 10 V as the optimal variant. The main connections between the measurements and technology are emphasized.