What is it about?
For this first time in this study, we show that compound/alloy is used as a potential catalyst that acts as a precursor to grow silicon nano-wires, covered with oxide layer, without the use of external precursor containing oxide.
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Why is it important?
Nanowires that are produced with a particular technique oxidises when exposed to air and pose various problems which demands for extra attention. Dangling bonds terminated at the surface of NWs leads to surface defects that are useful in applications such as charge storage memory and biosensors. However, this poses serious threat for applications such as diodes, solar cells and transistors due to increased recombination, Fermi level pinning, oxidation, lower mobility and carrier lifetime. Hence, Surface passivation of NWs is performed to overcome problems associated with untreated nanowires. This study reports in situ precipitation and growth of passivated NWs without the need of additional fabrication process.. This is accomplished with an aid of metal compound (compound containing atoms required for passivation) assisted growth
Perspectives
This research opens doors to a new area of research ever established by growing NWs coated with a shell in a single pump-down process without breaking vacuum. This is achieved by simultaneous precipitation of a nanowire and a shell from a metal compound assisted growth process to obtain core-shell nanowires.
Professor Shashi Paul
De Montfort University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Birth of silicon nanowires covered with protective insulating blanket, MRS Communications, September 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1557/mrc.2017.95.
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