Silicon Nanowires as Biocompatibile Electronics-Biology Interface

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) represent new opportunities for developing electrical biosensors due to their inherent properties, including large surface-to-volume ratio, rapid signal response and nanoscale footprint comparable to biomolecular and subcellular structures. Still, fabrication of nanosized electrodes is time-consuming, pricey and might be only scarcely compatible with the Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor integrated circuits (CMOS-IC) technology. To take a step forward, we introduced an innovative approach to fabricate small, high-density SiNWs with a low-temperature (200 °C) and CMOS-compatible method. In this work, the fabrication process and the preliminary results showing biocompatibility and neutrality of SiNWs used as seeding substrate for cultured cells are presented.