Silver-assisted Etching of Silicon Nanowires

Silicon nanowires are attractive for photovoltaic applications where they can be used along with bulk silicon in an all-Si tandem solar cell. The larger band gap, caused by the quantum confinement effect in narrow silicon nanowires (<5 nm), provides a more efficient light absorption. The most common processes for nanowire synthesis are rather expensive and require high temperatures, high vacuum and hazardous precursors. A simple and cheap method is the silver-assisted electroless Si etching process. A silicon substrate is selectively etched in HF based solutions with the help of silver particles which are deposited beforehand or in-situ. Both the etch process and the deposition of silver particles were studied. The silver nanoparticles were deposited by electroless deposition (galvanic displacement) from HF and non-HF containing solutions. The effects of silver coverage, Si doping and illumination on the Si etching process were investigated. The experimental observations were used to get more insight into the mechanism.

ISBN:978-1-60768-224-0

Publication year:2011

Keywords:Electrochemistry

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Accessibility:Closed