Modified Si Oxidation Behavior by Ultrathin Ni Catalyst Enabling Oxidant‐Less Metal‐Assisted Chemical Etching (Small 11/2025)

Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching In article number 2409091, Jungwoo Oh and co-workers introduce an innovative metal-assisted chemical etching method using an ultrathin 1 nm nickel catalyst, overcoming limitations of noble metal catalysts in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processes. The Ni catalyst enables smooth, deep silicon etching without strong oxidants and supports versatile wafer-scale microstructure fabrication. This CMOS-compatible, cost-efficient approach offers significant potential for semiconductor nanofabrication.