https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2020200289
Regular Article
A systematic study of silicon nanowires array fabricated through metal-assisted chemical etching
1
School of Science, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, P.R. China
2
College of Optoelectronics Engineering, Zaozhuang University, Zaozhuang 277160, P.R. China
3
Institute of novel semiconductors, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, P.R. China
* e-mail: qjxu@sdu.edu.cn; shiyingwl@163.com
Received:
11
September
2020
Received in final form:
29
October
2020
Accepted:
9
November
2020
Published online: 11 December 2020
Aligned and uniform silicon nanowires (SiNWs) arrays were fabricated with good controllability and reproducibility by metal-assisted chemical etching in aqueous AgNO3/HF etching solutions in atmosphere. The SiNWs formed on silicon were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED). The results show that the as-prepared SiNWs are perfectly single crystals and the axial orientation of the Si nanowires is identified to be parallel to the [111] direction, which is identical to the initial silicon wafer. In addition, a series of experiments were conducted to study the effects of etching conditions such as solution concentration, etching time, and etching temperature on SiNWs. And the optimal solution concentrations for SiNWs have been identified. The formation mechanism of silicon nanowires and silver dendrites were also discussed.
© EDP Sciences, 2020
