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High-Speed and Direction-Controlled Formation of Silicon Nanowire Arrays Assisted by Electric Field.

ABSTRACT: Metal-assisted chemical etching (MaCE), a low-cost and versatile method was considered a promising technique for preparing silicon nanowires (SiNWs), yet the lack of well controlling the injected holes within Si might reduce the etching rate, create the unwanted sidewall etching, and degrade the structural uniformity. Herein, in this study, the bias-modulated MaCE process was performed, showing the etching rates more than four times of magnitude than that of typical bias-free MaCE with large-area uniformity. It was found that the field-mediated hole rectification overwhelmed the effect of retarded diffusivity from reactive ions, and thus the dynamics of distributed etching were therefore transferred to the directional etching behaviors. In addition, the etching orientation could be also manipulated with the external bias. The results demonstrated that the etching direction was switched toward the slanted features by varying the electric polarization, creating the special slanted/vertical NW arrays, which possessed the superior antireflection characteristics than the conventional vertically aligned features.

SUBMITTER: Chien PJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6990330 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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High-Speed and Direction-Controlled Formation of Silicon Nanowire Arrays Assisted by Electric Field.

Chien Pin-Ju PJ Wei Ta-Cheng TC Chen Chia-Yun CY

Nanoscale research letters 20200130 1

Metal-assisted chemical etching (MaCE), a low-cost and versatile method was considered a promising technique for preparing silicon nanowires (SiNWs), yet the lack of well controlling the injected holes within Si might reduce the etching rate, create the unwanted sidewall etching, and degrade the structural uniformity. Herein, in this study, the bias-modulated MaCE process was performed, showing the etching rates more than four times of magnitude than that of typical bias-free MaCE with large-are ...[more]

PMID: 32002703

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Project description:The combination of metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) with colloidal lithography has emerged as a simple and cost-effective approach to nanostructure silicon. It is especially efficient at synthesizing Si micro- and nanowire arrays using a catalytic metal mesh, which sinks into the silicon substrate during the etching process. The approach provides a precise control over the array geometry, without requiring expensive nanopatterning techniques. Although MACE is a high-throughput solution-based approach, achieving large-scale homogeneity can be challenging because of the instability of the metal catalyst when the experimental parameters are not set appropriately. Such instabilities can lead to metal film fracture, significantly damaging the substrate and thus compromising the nanowire array quality. Here, we report on the critical parameters that influence the stability of the metal catalyst layer for achieving large-scale homogeneous MACE: etchant composition, metal film thickness, adhesion layer thickness, nanowire diameter and pitch, metal film coverage, Si/Au/etchant interface length, and crystalline quality of the colloidal template (grain size and defects). Our results investigate the origin of the catalyst film fracture and reveal that MACE experiments should be optimized for each Si wire array geometry by keeping the etch rate below a certain threshold. We show that the Si/Au/etchant interface length also affects the etch rate and should thus be considered when optimizing the MACE experimental parameters. Finally, our results demonstrate that colloidal templates with small grain sizes (i.e., <100 μm2) can yield significant problems during the pattern transfer because of a high density of defects at the grain boundaries that negatively affects the metal film stability. As such, this work provides guidelines for the large-scale synthesis of Si micro- and nanowire arrays via MACE, relevant for both new and experienced researchers working with MACE.

Dataset Information

High-Speed and Direction-Controlled Formation of Silicon Nanowire Arrays Assisted by Electric Field.

Publications

High-Speed and Direction-Controlled Formation of Silicon Nanowire Arrays Assisted by Electric Field.

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