Oxidation of silicon nanowires

Abstract

Silicon nanowires have received attention for nanoscale electronic devices and chemical and biological sensors. The thermal oxide grown on the silicon nanowires could be used in a variety of devices, so the oxidation of the silicon nanowires is investigated in this work. Silicon nanowires with an average radius of 37nm were grown for these experiments using the vapor-liquid-solid technique with Au to mediate the growth. Etching of the Au tips from the silicon nanowires was performed prior to oxidation to avoid local accelerated oxidation at the nanowire tip. Oxidation was performed at 700°C for 1–121h and at 650 and 750°C for 4h in O2, and the oxidized nanowires were examined by transmission electron microscopy. Depending on the conditions for oxidation, an oxide shell as thin as 6nm was observed, or the entire nanowire was oxidized. The kinetics of oxidation differ from those of a planar silicon wafer and are discussed in this work.

Influence of Oxygen Concentration of Si Wafer Surface in Si Emission on Nano Ordered Three-Dimensional Structure Devices

“…In the case of a pillar diameter of several tens of nm or less, when high temperature heat is applied by thermal oxidation process, silicon atoms constituting the pillar crystal moves and the phenomenon occurs in which the pillar structure cannot be maintained. Such thermal oxidation of the Si pillar structure already has been studied by many researchers [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Liu et.al.…”

Synthesis of Vertical High‐Density Epitaxial Si(100) Nanowire Arrays on a Si(100) Substrate Using an Anodic Aluminum Oxide Template

“…A further decrease of the diameter of the Si nanowires can be accomplished by controlled thermal oxidation of the free-standing wires and subsequent etching away of the resulting SiO 2 coverage. [27] Experimental Al films were deposited by using electron-beam evaporation (thickness ca. 2000 nm) on H-terminated n-type Si(100) substrates (resistivity less than 60 mX cm) as anode.…”

Design, Fabrication and Characterization of High-Performance Silicon Nanowire Transistor

“…We then thermally oxidized the SiNWs at 700 o C for 30 minutes. Based on the work on SiNW oxidation [9], a thin layer of oxide (1 nm ~ 2 nm) grows on the SiNW surface, which improves the interface between the SiNW and the subsequently deposited HfO 2 layer. The following compatible fabrication processes were used to pattern the metal contacts (i.e.…”