Catalytic and non-catalytic growth of amorphous silica nanowires and their photoluminescence properties

A simple method based on the thermal oxidation of Si wafers in presence of a mixture of MgO and graphite powder was developed for large-scale synthesis of very long amorphous silica nanowires. The synthesis was done with and without gold as the catalyst. Almost aligned uniform nanowires with diameters within 60–90 nm and length up to few hundred micrometers were obtained using gold as the catalyst while bicycle chain like nanowires were obtained in absence of the catalyst. The growth sequence of the nanowires was observed through scanning electron microscope. Both forms of the nanowires emitted blue lights at 414 nm (3 eV) under excitation at 250 nm.