CMOS-Compatible Silicon-Nanowire-Based Coulter Counter for Cell Enumeration

A silicon-nanowire-based Coulter counter has been designed and fabricated for particle/cell enumeration. The silicon nanowire was fabricated in a fully complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process and used as a field effect transistor (FET) device. The Coulter counter device worked on the principle of potential change detection introduced by the passing of microparticles/cells through a sensing channel. Device uniformity was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Current-voltage measurement showed the high sensitivity of the nanowire FET device to the surface potential change. The results revealed that the silicon-nanowire-based Coulter counter can differentiate polystyrene beads with diameters of 8 and 15 μm. Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF-7) cells have been successfully counted to validate the device. A fully CMOS-compatible fabrication process can help the device integration and facilitate the development of sensor arrays for high throughput application. With appropriate sample preparation steps, it is also possible to expand the work to applications such as rare-cells detection.