Aspect of aluminum-catalyzed silicon nanowires synthesized at low temperature and effect of hydrogen radical treatment

Large quantities of aluminum-catalyzed silicon nanowires (SiNWs) after hydrogen radical treatment were successfully synthesized at lower temperatures than aluminum-silicon eutectic temperature using the hydrogen radical-assisted deposition method. SiNWs were also synthesized at considerably low temperature as 350 oC. Their structures are worm- and wire-likely grown at all synthesis temperature. The as-synthesized SiNWs are polycrystalline as verified by X-ray diffraction measurement. Their diameters mainly ranged from 50 to 200 nm and their lengths extended to about 8 μm. In this experiment, we confirmed that the hydrogen radical pretreatment is essential when the metal-catalyzed SiNWs are synthesized at lower temperatures than metal-Si eutectic temperature.