Large arrays of ultra-high aspect ratio periodic silicon nanowires obtained via top–down route

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Abstract

Metal-catalysed etching (MCE) is a simple and versatile method for fabrication of silicon nanowires, of high structural quality. When combined with laser interference lithography (LIL), large areas of periodic structures can be generated in only few steps. The aspect ratio of such periodic structure is however commonly not higher than several decades or very few hundred. Here, a combined MCE and LIL techniques were applied to fabricate dense (4 × 108 cm−3), periodic arrays of vertically aligned silicon nanowires with aspect ratio of up to 103. This is a considerable higher number than previously reported on for periodic silicon wire arrays prepared with top–down approaches. The wires were slightly tapered, with top and bottom diameters ranging from 370 to 195 nm and length of up to 200 μm. A potential use of the nanowires as light absorber is demonstrated by measuring reflection in integrating sphere. An average total absorption of ~97 % was observed for 200-μm-long wires in the spectral range of 450–1000 nm. A comparison to simulated absorption spectra is given.

Original languageEnglish
Article number52
Pages (from-to)1-6
Number of pages6
JournalApplied Physics A: Materials Science and Processing
Volume122
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: This research was supported in part by the Energy Research Fund of the National Power Company of Iceland and by the UT System Texas Nanoelectronics Research Superiority Award funded by the State of Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Additional support was provided by the Texas Instruments Distinguished University Chair in Nanoelectronics endowment. Publisher Copyright: © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

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