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Vapor-liquid-solid growth of Si nanowires: A kinetic analysis

Shakthivel, Dhayalan and Raghavan, Srinivasan (2012) Vapor-liquid-solid growth of Si nanowires: A kinetic analysis. In: Journal of Applied Physics, 112 (2).

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4737597

Abstract

A steady state kinetic model has been developed for the vapor-liquid-solid growth of Si whiskers or nanowires from liquid catalyst droplets. The steady state is defined as one in which the net injection rate of Si into the droplet is equal to the ejection rate due to wire growth. Expressions that represent specific mechanisms of injection and ejection of Si atoms from the liquid catalyst droplet have been used and their relative importance has been discussed. The analysis shows that evaporation and reverse reaction rates need to be invoked, apart from just surface cracking of the precursor, in order to make the growth rate radius dependent. When these pathways can be neglected, the growth rate become radius independent and can be used to determine the activation energies for the rate limiting step of heterogeneous precursor decomposition. The ejection rates depend on the mechanism of wire growth at the liquid-solid interface or the liquid-solid-vapor triple phase boundary. It is shown that when wire growth is by nucleation and motion of ledges, a radius dependence of growth rate does not just come from the Gibbs-Thompson effect on supersaturation in the liquid, but also from the dependence of the actual area or length available for nucleation. Growth rates have been calculated using the framework of equations developed and compared with experimental results. The agreement in trends is found to be excellent. The same framework of equations has also been used to account for the diverse pressure and temperature dependence of growth rates reported in the literature. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: Journal of Applied Physics
Publisher: American Institute of Physics
Additional Information: Copyright for theis article belongs to American Institute of Physics
Department/Centre: Division of Chemical Sciences > Materials Research Centre
Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Centre for Nano Science and Engineering
Date Deposited: 12 Sep 2012 05:54
Last Modified: 12 Sep 2012 05:54
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/45053

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