Tunable metallic silicon nanowires and quantum dots with tailored dimensions and spacing

Abstract

Metallic silicon nanowire and quantum dots are promising low dimensional materials for a great range of applications. A critical issue is their quality-controlled, cost-effective fabrication. This paper presents a simple method for making seamlessly integrated tunable metallic silicon nanowires and quantum dots in the subsurface of mono-crystalline silicon by mechanical scratching. The study predicted, with the aid of the molecular dynamics analysis, that arrays of stable metallic bct-5 silicon nanowires and conductive quantum dots could be produced in the subsurface of silicon by scratching the {001} surface along a ⟨110⟩ direction. The dimension and spacing of the nanowires and quantum dots can easily be controlled by adjusting the distance between scratching tips, the size of the tips, and their depth-of-cut. It was also shown that the metallic bct-5 silicon is stable under a residual octahedral shear stress of 5 to 8 GPa.