Large scale low cost fabrication of diameter controllable silicon nanowire arrays

We report on a novel solution etching method to fabricate vertically aligned aperiodic silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays. We begin with a simple dewetting process to fabricate a monolayer of well-spaced metal particles in situ on a silicon wafer. The particles function as a sacrificial template to pattern a Ti/Au catalyst film into a metal mesh and the size of particles directly determines the diameter of SiNW. A conventional metal-assisted chemical etching process is then carried out with the obtained metal mesh as a catalyst to realize a vertically aligned SiNW array at a large scale and low cost.

Leimeng Sun, Yu Fan, Xinghui Wang, Rahmat Agung Susantyoko and Qing Zhang

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