关键词:
Microstructure
Nanostructured materials
Semiconductors
摘要:
Semiconductor nanomaterials are an area of research of intense interest because of their wide potential applications arising from their different properties than the bulk material. It is very important to develop the fabrication method and understand the formation mechanism of such nanomaterials since they are responsible for obtaining the high-quality materials available for research and applications. As the growth process can influence the crystal structure of the nanomaterials, the study of the microstructures may reveal the mechanism of synthesis and information to improve the fabrication procedures. Due to the small size of nanomaterials, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and related techniques, such as high resolution TEM (HRTEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) were employed to characterize the nanomaterials because these methods can provide a high enough spatial resolution and corresponding chemical information about these tiny objects. Other methods, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), have been used to characterize the morphology and composition of nanomaterials. In this thesis, quasi one-dimensional silicon nanowires have been achieved at relatively low temperatures (between 600 - 900 ºC) with the Au-catalyzing oxide-assisted growth (OAG) method on both TEM copper grids evaporated with Au particles in a tube furnace and on silicon substrates covered with Au film in the hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) system. TEM study shows the Si nanowires have Au caps on the crystalline silicon cores surrounded with silica sheath. The diameters of Si nanowires are limited by the sizes of the Au caps, whose diameter decreases with decreasing synthesis temperature. Statistics indicates that most Si nanowires grow along the <112> direction, same as those grown from the catalyst-free OAG method but different from those grown from the common metal