Silver catalysis in the fabrication of silicon nanowire arrays

Abstract

A method involving dry deposition plus wet chemical etching was devised to fabricatesilicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays and to study silver catalysis during fabrication. Throughinvestigation of the track of catalyst particles, it was shown that Ag really catalyses theetching of silicon underneath Ag, which clarifies doubts about the formation of SiNWarrays during wet chemical etching. The intrinsic properties of Ag and the networkstructure of Ag clusters during etching facilitate the etching process. The etching product,i.e. vertical SiNW arrays containing an Ag nanocluster mesh, could be considered as aprototype secondary composite nanostructured catalyst with promise for futureapplications.