Patent ID: 7601620

Claim:
A method for fabricating nanocoils, comprising: providing a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, in which SOI wafer includes a buried oxide layer; patterning one or more devices onto a silicon device layer on top of the buried oxide layer; depositing a tensile stressed layer on the silicon device layer so that stressed layer and silicon device layer form a stressed coiling bi-layer; patterning a coiling arm structure on the stressed coiling bi-layer, wherein patterning the coiling arm structure comprises selectively removing portions of the stressed coiling bi-layer so as to define the coiling arm structure pattern and to expose the buried oxide layer; depositing a metal encapsulation layer on the stressed coiling bi-layer after patterning the coiling arm structure; and releasing the coiling arm structure so that coiling arm coils to form nanocoil, wherein the releasing submerges the SOI wafer in acid to release the coiling arm structure and the deposited metal encapsulation layer protects the stressed coiling bi-layer from the acid used during the releasing without significantly hindering the coiling of the coiling arm structure.