[en] Full text: Materials engineering at the nano-scale is a promising area of research as it holds the potential to simultaneously enhance material performance while reducing the amount of material required. Recently, we have demonstrated a new technology that enables dense nanowire coatings to be developed on silicon and germanium that may have broad technological applications such as low reflectivity surfaces for solar panels and high-density anodes for lithium-ion batteries. This process is made possible by the peculiar way in which helium interacts with materials it is implanted into. Being a noble gas helium is insoluble in most materials so has a strong tendency to associate with vacancy-type defect sites and precipitate into bubbles once a critical helium cluster size is reached. Under high-flux helium plasma the helium-material system exists in an extreme non-equilibrium state which can produce significant morphological changes, including the production of bubbles, surface pits, and nanowires. The exact features that form are very sensitive to the sample temperature and plasma conditions. The process was first observed by nuclear fusion researchers investigating the influence of plasma exposure on tungsten tokamak wall tiles. Here, we discuss our recently work in applying this technology to semiconductor systems and how this technology could provide a feasible pathway for scalable, low-cost fabrication of nanostructured surfaces. We propose a model where nanowire growth occurs due to helium-enhanced Frenkel pair formation, and the subsequent suppression of recombination due to helium atoms binding to vacancy-type defects. Surface changes then occur progressively due to differences in the behaviour of vacancies and self-interstitial-type defects, and in particular the way surface adatoms interact with surface morphology. (author)