Nanostructured biosensing platform-shadow edge lithography for high-throughput nanofabrication

One of the critical challenges in nanostructured biosensors is to manufacture an addressable array of nanopatterns at low cost. The addressable array (1) provides multiplexing for biomolecule detection and (2) enables direct detection of biomolecules without labeling and amplification. To fabricate such an array of nanostructures, current nanolithography methods are limited by the lack of either high throughput or high resolution. This paper presents a high-resolution and high-throughput nanolithography method using the compensated shadow effect in high-vacuum evaporation. The approach enables the fabrication of uniform nanogaps down to 20 nm in width across a 100 mm silicon wafer. The nanogap pattern is used as a template for the routine fabrication of zero-, one-, and two-dimensional nanostructures with a high yield. The method can facilitate the fabrication of nanostructured biosensors on a wafer scale at a low manufacturing cost.