Formation Mechanism of Silicon Nanowires Using Chemical/Electrochemical Process

Abstract

In this work, Si nanostructure arrays are fabricated using a low-cost chemical/electrochemical etching method. The technique consists of two consecutive chemical and electrochemical etching steps. A mask-less and nonlithographical technique of anisotropic wet etching of silicon samples in hydroxide solutions was used to generate pyramid shape seeding points. The subsequent fabrication stages consist of electrochemically etching to generate nanowires. The growth mechanism of the nanowires was investigated experimentally in order to find out the effects of various fabrication parameters on the physical properties of the nanowires like their structures, shapes, sizes, aspect ratio, and morphologies. Modeling and simulation of the nanowires growth are performed using multiphysics software tool, COMSOL, in order to explain and confirm the experimental results.