Fabrication and electrical transport properties of nickel monosilicide nanowires

Nickel silicide nanowires (NSNWs) have been fabricated and characterized. We propose a fabrication process for one-dimensional silicon nanowires (SiNWs) using scanning probe lithography (SPL) technology and anisotropic wet etching with tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution on a (100) Si layer of silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate. Subsequently, the thin nickel films (/spl sim/50 nm) evaporated on SiNWs and the nickel monosilicide was formed by solid-state reaction between nickel and silicon under a rapid thermal annealing (RTA) in N/sub 2/ ambient for 1 min. Then, the electrical properties of the SiNWs and NSNWs have also been examined and compared.