  A chemical nanomachining process for the rapid, scalable production of
nanostructure assemblies from silicon-on-insulator is demonstrated. The process
is based on the spontaneous, local oxidation of Si induced by Au, which is
selectively evaporated onto the Si surface. The Au-catalyzed oxide forms a
pattern that serves as a robust mask for the underlying Si, enabling the use of
simple wet chemistry to sculpt arrays of nanostructures of diverse shapes
including rings, pillars, wires, and nanopores. The remarkable simplicity of
this chemical nanomachining process makes it widely accessible as an enabling
technique for applications from photonics to biotechnology.
