25th Anniversary Article: Semiconductor Nanowires – Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications

Abstract

Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) have been studied extensively for over two decades for their novel electronic, photonic, thermal, electrochemical and mechanical properties. This comprehensive review article summarizes major advances in the synthesis, characterization, and application of these materials in the past decade. Developments in the understanding of the fundamental principles of "bottom-up" growth mechanisms are presented, with an emphasis on rational control of the morphology, stoichiometry, and crystal structure of the materials. This is followed by a discussion of the application of nanowires in i) electronic, ii) sensor, iii) photonic, iv) thermoelectric, v) photovoltaic, vi) photoelectrochemical, vii) battery, viii) mechanical, and ix) biological applications. Throughout the discussion, a detailed explanation of the unique properties associated with the one-dimensional nanowire geometry will be presented, and the benefits of these properties for the various applications will be highlighted. The review concludes with a brief perspective on future research directions, and remaining barriers which must be overcome for the successful commercial application of these technologies.

Inorganic semiconducting materials for flexible and stretchable electronics

“…The required nanoscale inorganic semiconductor building blocks can be formed using chemical synthetic methods, sometimes referred to as ''bottom-up'' approaches, whereby controlled growth yields two-dimensional (2D) nanomembranes or nanoribbons (NMs, NRs), 35,36 one-dimensional (1D) nanowires (NWs), 37 zero-dimensional (0D) nanoparticles, 38 or in complex geometries that incorporate multiple such features. The most widely explored schemes involve NWs, where there are many examples of flexible/ stretchable electronics that exploit the outstanding electrical, 39 mechanical, 40 and optical properties 41 of these materials.…”

“…2c (bottom). 37 Commercially available SOI wafers provide access to NMs with thicknesses down to approximately 20 nm. Additional processing, based on sequential cycles of oxidation and etching, can yield ultrathin Si NMs, with thicknesses ranging from 1.4 to 10 nm.…”

Diameter-Controlled Germanium Nanowires with Lamellar Twinning and Polytypes

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The integration of semiconductor nanowires into device geometries 9 requires control over their morphology, dimensions, growth orientation, crystal phase and structural defects. Catalytic bottom-up approaches, such as vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) [10][11][12] , vapor-solid-solid (VSS) [13][14] , supercritical fluid-liquid-solid (SFLS) [15][16][17] techniques, are popular routes for growing high-aspect ratio one-dimensional nanostructures [18][19] , where nanowire diameters can be controlled by the dimension of the catalysts.…”

Facile integration of ordered nanowires in functional devices

“…A decade of research efforts shows that the most advantageous nanodevice configuration requires either a single (or a few) nanowires running parallel between two electrodes [9] to thus build up a well-defined conduction channel to be easily modulated by external stimuli (e.g. chemical or biological agents [10,11], light or radiation [12], external electric fields [13,14], etc.).…”