Laser-induced greenish-blue photoluminescence of mesoporous silicon nanowires

Removal of Ag remanence and improvement in structural attributes of silicon nanowires array via sintering

Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) is popular due to the large-area fabrication of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) exhibiting a high aspect ratio at a low cost. The remanence of metal, i.e., silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) used in the MACE, deteriorates the device (especially solar cell) performance by acting as a defect center. The superhydrophobic behavior of nanowires (NWs) array prohibits any liquid-based solution (i.e., thorough cleaning with HNO3 solution) from removing the AgNPs. Thermal treatment of NWs is an alternative approach to reduce the Ag remanence. Sintering temperature variation is chosen between the melting temperature of bulk-Ag (962 °C) and bulk-Si (1412 °C) to reduce the Ag particles and improve the crystallinity of the NWs. The melting point of NWs decreases due to surface melting that restricts the sintering temperature to 1200 °C. The minimum sintering temperature is set to 1000 °C to eradicate the Ag remanence. The SEM-EDS analysis is carried out to quantify the reduction in Ag remanence in the sintered NWs array. The XRD analysis is performed to study the oxides (SiO and Ag2O) formed in the NWs array due to the trace oxygen level in the furnace. The TG-DSC characterization is carried out to know the critical sintering temperature at which remanence of AgNPs removes without forming any oxides. The Raman analysis is studied to determine the crystallinity, strain, and size of Si nanocrystals (SiNCs) formed on the NWs surface due to sidewalls etching. An optimized polynomial equation is derived to find the SiNCs size for various sintering temperatures.

Compositional, Optical and Electrical Characteristics of SiOx Thin Films Deposited by Reactive Pulsed DC Magnetron Sputtering

The influence of O2 flow rate on the compositional, optical and electrical characteristics of silicon oxide (SiOx) thin films (x < 2) were studied in this work. The SiOx thin films were obtained by pulsed direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering (PMS) onto n-type Si wafers (and also on glass substrates) at a vacuum of 3 × 10−3 Pa. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) was used to check the compositional elements of deposited films and its oxidized states were analysed via Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The optical properties of as-deposited SiOx thin films were investigated from transmittance measurements at room temperature in the wavelength range of 250–800 nm. The obtained data reveal that the Urbach energy (a measure of the band tail extension, Eu) decreased from about 523 to 172 meV as the rate of oxygen gas flow increased. On the contrary, the optical energy band-gap (Eg) increased from 3.9 to 4.2 eV. Conduction and valance band positions (relative to the normal hydrogen electrode) were also evaluated. The observed behavior is probably associated with the degree of disorder and defects presented in the as-deposited SiOx thin films, probably due to the presence of newly inserted oxidized OnSiHy species resulting from some contamination with water vapor desorbed from the walls of the deposition vacuum chamber. After deposition of a gold top electrode, the electrical characteristics of the fabricated Au/SiOx/n-Si system (i.e., a metal/insulator/semiconductor structure—MIS) were studied via characteristic I-V curves and their dependence upon the O2 flow rate are reported. It was observed that the Au/SiOx/n-Si structure behaves like a Schottky-diode exhibiting a very good diode rectifying performance with a rectification ratio of at least 300 and up to 104, which refers to the samples produced with the lower and higher O2 flow rates, respectively. It was also found that the O2 flow rate influences the rectifying performance of the SiOx/n-structures since both the diode ideality factor, n, and the diode series-resistance, RS decreases with the increase of O2 content, possibly reflecting a closer approximation to a full stoichiometric condition.

Efficient visible light photocatalysis and tunable photoluminescence from orientation controlled mesoporous Si nanowires

Efficient visible light photocatalysis and visible photoluminescence from orientation controlled mesoporous Si nanowires grown by Ag assisted chemical etching of Si have been discussed.

Effect of Ag/Au bilayer assisted etching on the strongly enhanced photoluminescence and visible light photocatalysis by Si nanowire arrays

Array of Si nanowires fabricated by Au/Ag bilayer metal assisted etching exhibit strongly enhanced photoluminescence and efficient visible light photocatalysis and are primarily attributed to plasmon enhancement and Schottky barrier effect, respectively.

Surface plasmon enhanced photoluminescence from porous silicon nanowires decorated with gold nanoparticles

About 8-fold photoluminescence enhancement is realized in porous Si nanowires via coupling with the surface plasmon of Au nanoparticles.

Reducing the porosity and reflection loss of silicon nanowires by a sticky tape

Engineering the porosity of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) is of fundamental importance, and this work introduces a new method for doing so. Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) of heavily doped Si(100) creates mesoporous silicon nanowires (mp-SiNWs). mp-SiNWs are transferred from the MACE-treated wafer to a sticky tape, leaving residues composed of broken mp-SiNWs and a mesoporous Si layer on the wafer. Then the taped wafer is re-treated by MACE, without changing the etching conditions. The second MACE treatment generates mp-SiNWs that are less porous and longer than those generated by the first MACE treatment, which can be attributed to the difference in the surface topography at the beginning of the etching process. Less porous mp-SiNWs reduce optical scattering from the porous Si skeletons, and vertically protrude on the wafer without aggregation to facilitate optical trapping. Consequently, less porous mp-SiNWs effectively reduce ultraviolet-visible reflection loss.