Fabrication of p-type porous silicon nanowire with oxidized silicon substrate through one-step MACE

Abstract

In this paper, the simple pre-oxidization process is firstly used to treat the starting silicon wafer, and then MPSiNWs are successfully fabricated from the moderately doped wafer by one-step MACE technology in HF/AgNO3 system. The PL spectrum of MPSiNWs obtained from the oxidized silicon wafers show a large blue-shift, which can be attributed to the deep Q. C. effect induced by numerous mesoporous structures. The effects of HF and AgNO3 concentration on formation of SiNWs were carefully investigated. The results indicate that the higher HF concentration is favorable to the growth of SiNWs, and the density of SiNWs is significantly reduced when Ag+ ions concentrations are too high. The deposition behaviors of Ag+ ions on oxidized and unoxidized silicon surface were studied. According to the experimental results, a model was proposed to explain the formation mechanism of porous SiNWs by etching the oxidized starting silicon.