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 process requires only two masks with a minimum dimension of 4 mum. After the definition of the suspended structures a further oxidation step was performed in order to reduce the silicon core dimensions. Particular care was devoted to the rinsing step to avoid any sticking problem to the substrate.