Abstract
The need for miniaturized and high-performance devices has attracted enormous attention to the development of quantum silicon nanowires. However, the preparation of abundant quantities of silicon nanowires with the effective quantum-confined dimension remains challenging. Here, we prepare highly dense and vertically aligned sub-5 nm silicon nanowires with length/diameter aspect ratios greater than 10,000 by developing a catalyst-free chemical vapor etching process. We observe an unusual lattice reduction of up to 20% within ultra-narrow silicon nanowires and good oxidation stability in air compared to conventional silicon. Moreover, the material exhibits a direct optical bandgap of 4.16 eV and quasi-particle bandgap of 4.75 eV with the large exciton binding energy of 0.59 eV, indicating the significant phonon and electronic confinement. The results may provide an opportunity to investigate the chemistry and physics of highly confined silicon quantum nanostructures and may explore their potential uses in nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and energy systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 3467 |
| Journal | Nature communications |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 Dec |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank G. Gilmer (CSM) and A. Chiramonti (NIST) for discussions and Y. Jung (KAIST) and M. Woo (KAIST) for helpful input on PL and XRD measurements. This work is partially supported by Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department in Northeastern University, Fundamental R&D Program for Core Technology of Materials in the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Global Research Development Center Program (NRF-2015K1A4A3047100), Ministry of Science and ICT (Grant No. NRF-2020R1A2C2009378), and Brain Pool Program (NRF-2020H1D3A2A0106056) through the National Research Foundation of Republic of Korea. M.U. acknowledges support from supercomputing resources available through the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), and a grant from National Science Foundation DMR CMMT Program (No. 1106214). H.W. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12172347) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. WK2480000006).
Funding Information:
We thank G. Gilmer (CSM) and A. Chiramonti (NIST) for discussions and Y. Jung (KAIST) and M. Woo (KAIST) for helpful input on PL and XRD measurements. This work is partially supported by Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department in Northeastern University, Fundamental R&D Program for Core Technology of Materials in the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Global Research Development Center Program (NRF-2015K1A4A3047100), Ministry of Science and ICT (Grant No. NRF-2020R1A2C2009378), and Brain Pool Program (NRF-2020H1D3A2A0106056) through the National Research Foundation of Republic of Korea. M.U. acknowledges support from supercomputing resources available through the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), and a grant from National Science Foundation DMR CMMT Program (No. 1106214). H.W. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12172347) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. WK2480000006).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Chemistry(all)
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- General
- Physics and Astronomy(all)