Ricerc@Sapienza

We present a new technique which allows the growth of silicon nanostructures at low temperature, in different forms. The growth takes place with the presence of a gaseous silicon precursor and a metal catalyst, once the eutectic temperature is overcome. The technique we present is based on heating limited to the metal nanoparticles, by irradiation of Microwaves. The so called nano-susceptors absorbs energy that produces large local increase of temperature. Only the metal nanoparticles reach high temperatures.

The ability to merge electronic devices with biological systems at the cellular scale is an interesting perspective. Potential applications span from investigating the bio-electric signals in excitable (and non-excitable) cells with an insofar-unreached resolution to plan next-generation therapeutic devices. Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) are well suited for achieving this goal because of their intrinsic size and wide range of possible configurations.

We describe an innovative approach to sensing bioelectric signals at high space-time resolution with low invasiveness based on growing small Silicon Nano Wires (SiNW) at low-temperature (200 °C). The resulting SiNWs are compatible with ICs, allowing on-site amplification of bioelectric signals. We report our preliminary results showing biocompatibility and neutrality of SiNWs used as seeding substrate for cells in culture.