Role of secondary etching of silicon nanowires towards quantum confinement effect
Autor: | Paresh Kale, Mihir Kumar Sahoo |
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Rok vydání: | 2021 |
Předmět: |
010302 applied physics
Potential well Photoluminescence Materials science Silicon business.industry chemistry.chemical_element 02 engineering and technology 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Condensed Matter Physics 01 natural sciences Isotropic etching Micrometre Semiconductor chemistry Quantum dot Etching (microfabrication) 0103 physical sciences Optoelectronics General Materials Science Electrical and Electronic Engineering 0210 nano-technology business |
Zdroj: | Superlattices and Microstructures. 156:106949 |
ISSN: | 0749-6036 |
Popis: | The quantum confinement effect (QCE) plays a significant role in tuning the bandgap of the silicon nanowires (SiNWs) by converting from indirect to direct bandgap semiconductor. The QCE makes the silicon (Si) semiconductor suitable for efficient solar cell and optoelectronic devices. The QCE only occurs for the nanostructure of Si, whose diameter is lesser than Bohr's diameter (≈9.8 nm). Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) fabricates columnlike SiNWs array on the Si substrate through primary etching. Length of the fabricated NWs is in the micrometer range, and its diameter is much higher (d > 70 nm) than Bohr's diameter, which contradicts the existence of QCE in the NWs. However, secondary etching etches the sidewalls of the SiNWs forming Si nano-crystals and Si quantum dots on the NWs whose average size is lesser than Bohr's diameter. HRTEM image and mathematical analysis of the SiNWs, using Raman, XRD, and Photoluminescence (PL) characterization, calculate the average size of the nanostructures formed on the sidewalls. The analysis indicates nanostructures of size to be less than five nm, formed on the SiNWs due to secondary etching, the sole reason behind the origin of QCE. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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