Patterned growth of silicon oxide nanowires from iron ion implantedSiO2 substrates

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally a simple and efficient approach for silicon oxide nanowire growth, by implantingFe+ ions intothermally grown SiO2 layers on Si wafers and subsequently annealing in argon and hydrogen to nucleate thenanowires. We study the effect of implantation dose and energy, growth temperature,H2 gas flow, and growth time on the silicon oxide nanowire growth. We find thatsufficiently high implant dose, high growth temperature, and the presence ofH2 gas flow are crucial parameters for silicon oxide nanowire growth.We also demonstrate the patterned growth of silicon oxide nanowires inlocalized areas by lithographic patterning and etching of the implantedSiO2 substrates before growth. We propose a simple physical model to explain the growthresults. This works opens up the possibility of growing silicon oxide nanowires directly fromsolid substrates, controlling the location of nanowires at the submicron scale, andintegrating them into nonplanar three-dimensional nanoscale device structures.