Silicon nanowires: a building block for future technologies

A fractal array of room-temperature (RT) luminescent Si nanowires (NWs) is realized by thin-film metal-assisted chemical etching, a cost-effective, fast, and maskless Si technology compatible approach. This process permits obtaining Si NWs with interesting structural and optical features for a wide range of applications, from photonics to sensing. For what concern photonics, the possibility to fabricate artificial fractals based on Si NWs that integrate other interesting elements is reported. In particular, an artificial fractal based on the Er:Y2O3 decoration of Si NWs where the Er emission can be tuned as a function of the decoration angle is shown. In the sensor field, the use of Si NW luminescence can represent an interesting and innovative sensing mechanism for the realization of a novel class of sensing platform. In this work, a light-emitting Si NWs-based label-free sensor for both selective isolation and ultrasensitive quantification of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) is reported opening the route toward liquid biopsy applications.

[1]  Judit Zsuga,et al.  The Hill equation and the origin of quantitative pharmacology , 2012 .

[2]  Hyun Jin In,et al.  Periodically porous top electrodes on vertical nanowire arrays for highly sensitive gas detection , 2011, Nanotechnology.

[3]  Yit‐Tsong Chen,et al.  Silicon nanowire field-effect transistor-based biosensors for biomedical diagnosis and cellular recording investigation , 2011 .

[4]  Philip H Jones,et al.  Photonic Torque Microscopy of the Nonconservative Force Field for Optically Trapped Silicon Nanowires. , 2016, Nano letters.

[5]  Francesco Priolo,et al.  Size-scaling in optical trapping of silicon nanowires. , 2011, Nano letters.

[6]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  CMOS-Compatible and Low-Cost Thin Film MACE Approach for Light-Emitting Si NWs Fabrication , 2020, Nanomaterials.

[7]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Fractal Silver Dendrites as 3D SERS Platform for Highly Sensitive Detection of Biomolecules in Hydration Conditions , 2019, Nanomaterials.

[8]  Kazuaki Sakoda,et al.  Localization of electromagnetic waves in three-dimensional fractal cavities. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[9]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Biosensing platforms based on silicon nanostructures: A critical review. , 2021, Analytica chimica acta.

[10]  S. Bhattacharyya,et al.  Biological membranes in EV biogenesis, stability, uptake, and cargo transfer: an ISEV position paper arising from the ISEV membranes and EVs workshop , 2019, Journal of extracellular vesicles.

[11]  Yossi Rosenwaks,et al.  Measurement of active dopant distribution and diffusion in individual silicon nanowires. , 2010, Nano letters.

[12]  Peidong Yang,et al.  Light trapping in silicon nanowire solar cells. , 2010, Nano letters.

[13]  G. Mannino,et al.  Chemical Vapor Deposition Growth of Silicon Nanowires with Diameter Smaller Than 5 nm , 2019, ACS omega.

[14]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  New Generation of Ultrasensitive Label-Free Optical Si Nanowire-Based Biosensors , 2017 .

[15]  Mark I. Stockman,et al.  Inhomogeneous eigenmode localization, chaos, and correlations in large disordered clusters , 1997 .

[16]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Low Cost Fabrication of Si NWs/CuI Heterostructures , 2018, Nanomaterials.

[17]  Nam-Trung Nguyen,et al.  Biological Functions and Current Advances in Isolation and Detection Strategies for Exosome Nanovesicles. , 2018, Small.

[18]  Volker Schmidt,et al.  Silicon Nanowires: A Review on Aspects of their Growth and their Electrical Properties , 2009, Advanced materials.

[19]  C. Deng,et al.  Current Progresses of Exosomes as Cancer Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers , 2019, International journal of biological sciences.

[20]  Axel Scherer,et al.  Tunable visible and near-IR emission from sub-10 nm etched single-crystal Si nanopillars. , 2010, Nano letters.

[21]  Wei Lin,et al.  Fractal dendrite-based electrically conductive composites for laser-scribed flexible circuits , 2015, Nature Communications.

[22]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Silicon Nanowires Synthesis by Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching: A Review , 2021, Nanomaterials.

[23]  Hossam Haick,et al.  Field-effect transistors based on silicon nanowire arrays: effect of the good and the bad silicon nanowires. , 2012, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[24]  U. Gösele,et al.  Growth, thermodynamics, and electrical properties of silicon nanowires. , 2010, Chemical reviews.

[25]  Marin Soljacic,et al.  Fractal optics and beyond , 2012, Nature Photonics.

[26]  Benoit B. Mandelbrot,et al.  A Fractal’s Lacunarity, and how it can be Tuned and Measured , 1994 .

[27]  Oto Brzobohatý,et al.  Optical Trapping, Optical Binding, and Rotational Dynamics of Silicon Nanowires in Counter-Propagating Beams. , 2018, Nano letters.

[28]  C. Tsang,et al.  Fabrication of n-type mesoporous silicon nanowires by one-step etching. , 2011, Nano letters (Print).

[29]  P. Scollo,et al.  Identification of extracellular vesicles and characterization of miRNA expression profiles in human blastocoel fluid , 2019, Scientific Reports.

[30]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Silicon nanowire luminescent sensor for cardiovascular risk in saliva , 2018, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics.

[31]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Low cost synthesis of silicon nanowires for photonic applications , 2019, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics.

[32]  D. Wiersma,et al.  Coherent backscattering of Raman light , 2017, Nature Photonics.

[33]  M. Cesari,et al.  Exosome Determinants of Physiological Aging and Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases , 2019, Front. Aging Neurosci..

[34]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Catalytic Activity of Silicon Nanowires Decorated with Gold and Copper Nanoparticles Deposited by Pulsed Laser Ablation , 2018, Nanomaterials.

[35]  Nathan S. Lewis,et al.  Growth of vertically aligned Si wire arrays over large areas (>1 cm^2) with Au and Cu catalysts , 2007 .

[36]  Alireza Khalili Golmankhaneh,et al.  Sub- and super-diffusion on Cantor sets: Beyond the paradox , 2018 .

[37]  Shufeng Bai,et al.  Wafer-scale patterning of sub-40 nm diameter and high aspect ratio (>50:1) silicon pillar arrays by nanoimprint and etching , 2008, Nanotechnology.

[38]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Erbium emission in Er:Y2O3 decorated fractal arrays of silicon nanowires , 2020, Scientific Reports.

[39]  N. Cioffi,et al.  New Hybrid Light Harvesting Antenna Based on Silicon Nanowires and Metal Dendrimers , 2020, Advanced Optical Materials.

[40]  M. J. Lo Faro,et al.  Light-emitting silicon nanowires obtained by metal-assisted chemical etching , 2017 .

[41]  W. Hargrove,et al.  Lacunarity analysis: A general technique for the analysis of spatial patterns. , 1996, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[42]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Visualization of Directional Beaming of Weakly Localized Raman from a Random Network of Silicon Nanowires , 2020, Advanced science.

[43]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Electrodeposition of Nanoparticles and Continuous Film of CdSe on n-Si (100) , 2019, Nanomaterials.

[44]  Xiuling Li,et al.  Metal-assisted chemical etching in HF/H2O2 produces porous silicon , 2000 .

[45]  Hao Yan,et al.  Layer-by-layer assembly of nanowires for three-dimensional, multifunctional electronics. , 2007, Nano letters.

[46]  A. A. Leonardi,et al.  Ultrasensitive Label- and PCR-Free Genome Detection Based on Cooperative Hybridization of Silicon Nanowires Optical Biosensors. , 2018, ACS sensors.

[47]  Cristiano D'Andrea,et al.  Strongly enhanced light trapping in a two-dimensional silicon nanowire random fractal array , 2016, Light: Science & Applications.