Low Cost Fabrication of Si NWs/CuI Heterostructures.

Maria Lo Faro,Barbara Fazio,Paolo Musumeci,Dario Morganti,Ciro Vasi,Alessia Irrera,Antonio Leonardi,Francesco Priolo

doi:10.3390/nano8080569

Abstract

In this paper, we present the realization by a low cost approach compatible with silicon technology of new nanostructures, characterized by the presence of different materials, such as copper iodide (CuI) and silicon nanowires (Si NWs). Silicon is the principal material of the microelectronics field for its low cost, easy manufacturing and market stability. In particular, Si NWs emerged in the literature as the key materials for modern nanodevices. Copper iodide is a direct wide bandgap p-type semiconductor used for several applications as a transparent hole conducting layers for dye-sensitized solar cells, light emitting diodes and for environmental purification. We demonstrated the preparation of a solid system in which Si NWs are embedded in CuI material and the structural, electrical and optical characterization is presented. These new combined Si NWs/CuI systems have strong potentiality to obtain new nanostructures characterized by different doping, that is strategic for the possibility to realize p-n junction device. Moreover, the combination of these different materials opens the route to obtain multifunction devices characterized by promising absorption, light emission, and electrical conduction.

Highlights

Semiconducting nanowires arise as innovative materials in many different fields due to their improved electrical [1,2], optical [3,4], and mechanical [5,6] properties
In this paper, we present the realization by a low cost approach compatible with silicon technology of new nanostructures, characterized by the presence of different materials, such as copper iodide (CuI) and silicon nanowires (Si NWs)
We demonstrate the realization of two different morphologies: (i) a radial core-shell system of Si NWs wrapped by CuI nanoparticles (Figure 2b) and (ii) a fully embedded system were Si NWs are surrounded into a CuI matrix covered with a uniform top layer (Figure 2c)

Summary

Introduction

Semiconducting nanowires arise as innovative materials in many different fields due to their improved electrical [1,2], optical [3,4], and mechanical [5,6] properties. The choice of the metal catalyst is crucial in order to determine the NWs properties and a large number of attempts have been reported in order to circumvent the detrimental effect of catalyst impurities incorporation into device [19,20]. Other top-down approaches such as lithography and reactive ion etching are available, allowing the controlled synthesis of Si NWs with defined structural parameters [15,16,17,18]. These methodologies require the iteration of several processes, resulting extremely expensive in both terms of cost, technologies and time. RIE damage the Si NWs surface causing recombination losses detrimentally affecting the performances for all industrial applications

Methods

Results

Conclusion