Preparation of Silicon Nanowires and Porous Silicon Composite Structure by Electrocatalytic Metal Assisted Chemical Etching

doi:10.15541/jim20200509

Abstract

Abstract:

The quantum confinement effect brings good field emission characteristics to silicon nanowires, which is expected to improve the performance of field emission device through combination with the quasiballistic electrons drift model in porous silicon structure, but the efficiency of traditional metal assisted chemical etching is low. Constant current source was introduced on the basis of traditional metal assisted chemical etching in the present work, and a electrocatalytic metal assisted chemical etching method was proposed to achieve high-efficiency preparation of silicon nanowires and porous silicon composite structure. The preparation rate of silicon nanowires is 308 nm/min at 30 mA current, which is increased by 173% compared with that adopted the traditional method. Moreover, the effects of AgNO₃ concentration, etching time and etching current on the morphology of the composite structure were investigated. The field emission characteristics of the structure prepared by electrocatalytic metal assisted chemical etching were tested. The current density is 64 μA/cm² under the electric field of 14.16 V/μm, and threshold electric field is 10.83 V/μm.

Key words: electrochemistry, metal assisted chemical etching, silicon nanowire, porous silicon, field emission

CLC Number:

TQ150

CHEN Lichi, WANG Yaogong, WANG Wenjiang, MA Xiaoqin, YANG Jingyuan, ZHANG Xiaoning. Preparation of Silicon Nanowires and Porous Silicon Composite Structure by Electrocatalytic Metal Assisted Chemical Etching[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2021, 36(6): 608-614.

Figures/Tables 9

Fig. 1 Schematic drawing of preparation device

Fig. 2 SEM morphologies of samples prepared by different methods (a,d) EMACE 2-step method; (b,e) MACE 2-step method; (c) EMACE 1-step method; (f) High resolusion FESEM images of SiNWs clusters; (g) EDS of SiNWs clusters

Fig. 3 Effect of AgNO3 concentration on the morphology of SiNWs/PS composites (a) Changes of length of SiNWs, PS and cluster with AgNO3 concentration, and FESEM images of SiNWs/PS composites with AgNO3 concentration of (b) 1 mmol/L and (c) 20 mmol/L

Fig. 4 Effect of etching time on the morphology of SiNWs/PS composites (a) Changes of length of SiNWs, PS and cluster with etching time, and FESEM images of SiNWs/PS composites with etching time of (b) 1 min and (c) 20 min

Fig. 5 Effect of etching current on the morphology of SiNWs/PS composites

Fig. 6 Comparison of the morphology of samples prepared by different currents at the same scale (a) Cross section; (b) Surface

Fig. 7 Schematic diagram of EMACE method

Fig. 8 Variation of voltage/current between anode and cathode with time during the etching (a) EMACE 2-step method at 10 mA; (b) EMACE 2-step method at 30 mA; (c) EMACE 1-step method at 10 mA

Fig. 9 Test results of field emission characteristics (a) J-E curves; (b) Repeatability test

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