Silicon nanowires, synthesis

Lee, D.C. Hanrath, T. Korgel, B.A. Role of precursor decomposition kinetics in silicon nanowire synthesis in organic solvents. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 3573-3577. 

Demami F, Ni L, Rogel R, Salaun AC, Pichon L (2010) Silicon nanowires synthesis for chemical sensor applications. Procedia Eng 5 351-354... 

Cui, Y. Lauhon, L. I Gudiksen, M. S. Wang, J. Lieber, C. M. 2001. Diameter-controlled synthesis of single-crystal silicon nanowires. Appl. Phys. Lett. 78 2214-2216. 

In many cases, metal silicides may very well be the catalysts. For example, FeSi2 is being considered to be the catalyst in Fe-assisted nanowire synthesis. This is similar to the silicon mono-oxide case, although it is much easier to understand the mechanisms in the FeSi2 case. It is also possible that during the catalytic processes that silicon diffuses relatively freely through the metal catalyst and consequently, the observed silicides at the end of reaction may be different from those during the catalytic reaction. No direct evidence is available to show whether metal or metal silicide nanoparticles are the tme catalyst. 

M. K. Sunkara, S. Sharma, R. Miranda, G. Lian, and E. C. Dickey, Bulk synthesis of silicon nanowires using a low-temperature vapor-liquid-solid method, Appl. Phys. Lett. 19, 1546-1548... 

Silicon oxide is a critical source material in the oxide-assisted growth as described above. It also plays important roles, as is well known, in many fields such as electronics, optical communications, and thin-film technology. Our recent finding of silicon oxide in the synthesis of silicon nanowires, as we reviewed in the previous part of this chapter, would extend further the important new application of silicon oxide. 

Salhi B, Gelloz B, Koshida N, Patriarche G, Boukherroub R (2007) Synthesis and photoluminescence properties of silicon nanowires treated by high-pressure water vapor annealing. Phys Status Solidi A-Appl Mater 204 1302-1306... 

Kato Y, Adachi S (2011) Synthesis of Si nanowire arrays in AgO/HF solution and their optical and wettability properties. J Electrochem Soc 158 K157-K163 Kato S et al (2013) Optical assessment of silicon nanowire arrays fabricated by metal-assisted chemical etching. Nanoscale Res Lett 8 216... 

Sivakov Vet al (2009) Silicon nanowire-based solar cells on glass synthesis, optical properties, and cell parameters. Nano Lett 9 1549-1554... 

Paska Y, Stelzner T, Christiansen S, Haick H (2011) Enhanced sensing of nonpolar volatile organic compounds by silicon nanowire field effect transistors. ACS Nano 5(7) 5620-5626 Peng K-Q, Yan Y-J, Gao S-P, Zhu J (2002) Synthesis of large-area silicon nanowire arrays via self-assembling nanoelectrochemistry. Adv Mater 14 1164-1167... 

Rogash AL, Komowski A, Gao M, Eychmuller A, Weller H (1999) Synthesis and characterization of a size series of extremely small thiol-stabflized CdSe nanocrystals. J Phys Chem B 103 3065-3069 Sadeghian RB, Islam MS (2011) Ultralow-voltage field-ionization discharge on whiskered silicon nanowires for gassensing applications. Nat Mater 10 135-140... 

Zheng GF, Lu W, Jin S, Lieber CM (2004) Synthesis and fabrication of high-performance n-type silicon nanowire transistors. Adv Mater 16 1890-1893... 

Silicon nanowires were fabricated for the first time by electrochemical template synthesis at room temperature by J. Mallet and coworkers (Mallet et al. 2008). This innovative, cheap, and simple process consists of electroreduction of Si ions using a nonaqueous solvent and insulating nanoporous membranes with average pore diameters from 400 to 15 nm which fix the nanowires diameters... 

Recently, the VLS growth method has been extended beyond the gas-phase reaction to synthesis of Si nanowires in Si-containing solvent (Holmes et al, 2000). In this case 2.5-nm Au nanocrystals were dispersed in supercritical hexane with a silicon precursor (e.g., diphenylsilane) under a pressure of 200-270 bar at 500°C, at which temperature the diphenylsilane decomposes to Si atoms. The Au nanocrystals serve as seeds for the Si nanowire growth, because they form an alloy with Si, which is in equilibrium with pure Si. It is suggested that the Si atoms would dissolve in the Au crystals until the saturation point is reached then they are expelled from the particle to form a nanowire with a diameter similar to the catalyst particle. This method has an advantage over the laser-ablated Si nanowire in that the nanowire diameter can be well controlled by the Au particle size, whereas liquid metal droplets produced by the laser ablation process tend to exhibit a much broader size distribution. With this approach, highly crystalline Si nanowires with diameters ranging from 4 nm to 5 nm have been produced by Holmes et al. (2000). The crystal orientation of these Si nanowires can be controlled by the reaction pressure. 

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