Issue 18, 2014

Nanoporous silicon nitride membranes fabricated from porous nanocrystalline silicon templates

Abstract

The extraordinary permeability and manufacturability of ultrathin silicon-based membranes are enabling devices with improved performance and smaller sizes in such important areas as molecular filtration and sensing, cell culture, electroosmotic pumping, and hemodialysis. Because of the robust chemical and mechanical properties of silicon nitride (SiN), several laboratories have developed techniques for patterning nanopores in SiN using reactive ion etching (RIE) through a template structure. These methods however, have failed to produce pores small enough for ultrafiltration (<100 nm) in SiN and involve templates that are prone to microporous defects. Here we present a facile, wafer-scale method to produce nanoporous silicon nitride (NPN) membranes using porous nanocrystalline silicon (pnc-Si) as a self-assembling, defect free, RIE masking layer. By modifying the mask layer morphology and the RIE etch conditions, the pore sizes of NPN can be adjusted between 40 nm and 80 nm with porosities reaching 40%. The resulting NPN membranes exhibit higher burst pressures than pnc-Si membranes while having 5× greater permeability. NPN membranes also demonstrate the capacity for high resolution separations (<10 nm) seen previously with pnc-Si membranes. We further demonstrate that human endothelial cells can be grown on NPN membranes, verifying the biocompatibility of NPN and demonstrating the potential of this material for cell culture applications.

Graphical abstract: Nanoporous silicon nitride membranes fabricated from porous nanocrystalline silicon templates

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
04 Jun 2014
Accepted
16 Jul 2014
First published
24 Jul 2014

Nanoscale, 2014,6, 10798-10805

Author version available

Nanoporous silicon nitride membranes fabricated from porous nanocrystalline silicon templates

J. P. S. DesOrmeaux, J. D. Winans, S. E. Wayson, T. R. Gaborski, T. S. Khire, C. C. Striemer and J. L. McGrath, Nanoscale, 2014, 6, 10798 DOI: 10.1039/C4NR03070B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements