Synthesis and Properties of Templated Si-based Nanowires for Electrical Transport

Self-assembled Si nanowires (SiNWs) have been synthesized and characterized as a template for surface metal silicide formation to investigate electron transport at the nanowire surface. Silicon nanowires were directly grown on silicon substrates via the solid-liquid-solid (SLS) growth process. Preliminary synthesis utilized high-temperature processing of a sputtered Au catalyst film on Si (100) and (111) substrates in an oxygen-filtered Ar ambient. SiNW diameter was a roughly monotonic function of the growth time/temperature. The diameters of the SiNW templates ranged from approximately 5 nm to 180 nm. Ni deposition on the SLS SiNWs and post-deposition thermal processing was carried out for silicide formation. Metal-silicide coated nanowires were dispensed on metal-patterned Si wafers for electrical characterization and exhibited an improvement in conductivity of several orders of magnitude.