C-MEMS/NEMS: A Novel Technology for Nanoscale Material Formation From Graphite Fiber to Ni and Si Nanowires

Carbon microelectromechanical systems (C-MEMS) and carbon nanoelectromechanical system (C-NEMS) have received much attention because of the many potential applications. Some important applications include: DNA arrays, glucose sensors, microbatteries and biofuel cells. Microfabrication of carbon structures using current processing technology, including focused ion beam (FIB)¹ and reactive ion etching (RIE)², is time consuming and expensive. Low feature resolution, and poor repeatability of the carbon composition as well as widely varying properties of the resulting devices limits the use of screen printing of commercial carbon inks for C-MEMS. Our newly developed C-MEMS microfabrication technique is based on the pyrolysis of photo patterned resists³⁴. Figure 1(a) shows a typical SEM image of C-MEMS/NEMS features with carbon posts connected by carbon fibers. Figure 1(b) shows a typical carbon post with carbon nanofibers on its side surfaces.