Fabrication of arrays of tapered silicon micro-/nano-pillars by metal-assisted chemical etching and anisotropic wet etching

Fabrication of a 2D square lattice array of intentionally tapered micro-/nano-silicon pillars by metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) of silicon wafers is reported. The pillars are square rod shaped with the cross-sections in the range 0.2 × 0.2-0.9 × 0.9 μm2 and heights 3-7 μm. The spacing between pillars in the 2D square lattice was controlled between 0.5 and 3.0 μm. While the pillars after MACE had the high aspect ratio ∼1:5, subsequent anisotropic wet etching in potassium hydroxide solution led to 80°-89.5° tapers with smooth sidewalls. The resulting taper angle showed the relation with geometry of pillar structures; the spacing 0.5-3.0 μm led to the tapering angle 89.5°-80° for 3 and 5 μm tall pillars but 7 μm tall pillars showed no dependency between the tapering angle and the inter-pillar spacing. Such an array of silicon tapered-rods with smooth sidewalls is expected to be applicable as a mold in nanoimprinting applications.