Fabrication of silicon dioxide nanochannel arrays without nanolithography for manipulation of DNA molecule

In this paper, silicon dioxide (SiO₂) nanochannel arrays for DNA molecule stretching are presented. The fabrication of SiO₂ nanochannel is based on the combination of wet anisotropic etching, local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) and plasma etching of silicon. This fabrication technique is suggested for generating SiO₂ layer, which is easily controllable by oxidation condition. Thus, this technique enables the generation of nanochannels with various nanoscale dimensions without using nanolithography. DNA stretching experiment using the fabricated nanochannels is shown. That is, single DNA molecules stained with a fluorescent dye can be effectively stretched in the nanochannels.