Stress-induced ripping enables fabrication of nanopores with dimensions smaller than the resolution limit of the employed lithography.

Abstract

Nanopores in ultrathin membranes are central to single-molecule sensing, filtration, and energy conversion applications, yet fabrication of solid-state nanopores remains limited by fundamental trade-off between resolution, throughput, and tool complexity. Here, we report a scalable nanopore fabrication process that exploits stress-induced mechanical ripping to detach a fragment from a membrane with lateral dimensions in the nm-scale, forming pores with diameters down to the sub-10 nm regime, which is well below the resolution limit of the employed lithography. Using this approach, we demonstrate wafer-scale fabrication of nanopores at densities exceeding 10⁵ pores per cm² in dielectric (HfO₂), semiconducting (SiGe), and metallic (Cr) membranes, including suspended HfO₂ membranes as thin as 2 nm. We demonstrate the utility of the fabricated nanopores for high-performance surface enhanced Raman readouts of single molecule translocations. Beyond nanopore fabrication, this fracture-based approach points to broader opportunities for nanometer- and atomic-scale structuring of ultrathin materials.