© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Silicon micro/nanostructures are promising building blocks for high-performance solar cells, lithium-ion batteries, sensors and so on. Great challenges like high cost and complex fabrication process still exist for the fabrication of silicon micro/nanostructures, especially for the fabrication of uniformly distributed silicon micro/nanostructures. In this study, the generally unwelcome failure of materials, nanopitting, was introduced and demonstrated to be effective in micro/nanofabrication for the first time. Together with wet chemical etching, uniformly distributed silicon micro/nanostructures were obtained. Ag islands were formed by the nanopitting of chloridion, which will be used as mask and catalyser in the chemical etching process. The silicon micro/nanostructures, especially, uniformly distributed p-type silicon micro/nanostructures were fabricated with the low-cost and facile fabrication approach. In addition, the application of the silicon micro/nanostructures was demonstrated as microsupercapacitive electrodes with the integration of MnO2 nanostructures. The results show that the electrochemical performance of silicon micro/nanostructures was much better than that of silicon microstructures. The proposed approach is cost-effective to fabricate silicon micro/nanostructures, and the silicon micro/nanostructures have great potentials in miniaturised energy storage devices, sensors and photodevices.
References
-
-
1)
-
12. Nayak, B.K., Gupta, M.C.: ‘Micro texturing of silicon using pulsed N 2-laser and formation mechanism’, Appl. Opt., 2012, 51, pp. 114–120 (doi: 10.1364/AO.51.000114).
-
2)
-
18. Jiang, B., Li, M., Bai, F., et al: ‘Morphology-controlled synthesis of silver nanoparticles on the silicon substrate by a facile silver mirror reaction’, AIP Adv., 2013, 3, p. 032119 (doi: 10.1063/1.4794956).
-
3)
-
19. Geng, X., Qi, Z., Li, M., et al: ‘Fabrication of antireflective layers on silicon using metal-assisted chemical etching with in situ deposition of silver nanoparticle catalysts’, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 2012, 103, pp. 98–107 (doi: 10.1016/j.solmat.2012.04.020).
-
4)
-
22. Nassiopoulou, A.G., Gianneta, V., Katsogridakis, C.: ‘Si nanowires by a single-step metal-assisted chemical etching process on lithographically defined areas: formation kinetics’, Nanoscale Res. Lett., 2011, 6, p. 597 (doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-6-597).
-
5)
-
41. Pienkos, T.: ‘Stress development during evaporation of Cu and Ag on silicon’, Microelectron. Eng., 2003, 70, pp. 442–446 (doi: 10.1016/S0167-9317(03)00461-1).
-
6)
-
10. Yu, Z., Duong, B., Abbitt, D., et al: ‘Highly ordered MnO2 nanopillars for enhanced supercapacitor performance’, Adv. Mater., 2013, 25, pp. 3302–3306 (doi: 10.1002/adma.201300572).
-
7)
-
24. Lajvardi, M., Eshghi, H., Chazi, M.E., et al: ‘Structural and optical properties of silicon nanowires synthesized by Ag-assisted chemical etching’, Mater. Sci. Semicond. Process., 2015, 40, pp. 556–563 (doi: 10.1016/j.mssp.2015.07.032).
-
8)
-
15. Cui, Y., Lauhon, L.J., Gudiksen, M.S., et al: ‘Diameter-controlled synthesis of single crystal silicon nanowires’, Appl. Phys. Lett., 2001, 78, pp. 2214–2216 (doi: 10.1063/1.1363692).
-
9)
-
3. Cui, Y., Wei, Q., Park, H., et al: ‘Nanowire nanosensors for highly sensitive and selective detection of biological and chemical species’, Science, 2001, 293, pp. 1289–1292 (doi: 10.1126/science.1062711).
-
10)
-
2. Chatterjee, S., Carter, R., Oakes, L., et al: ‘Electrochemical and corrosion stability of nanostructured silicon by graphene coatings: toward high power porous silicon supercapacitors’, J. Phys. Chem. C, 2014, 118, pp. 10893–10902 (doi: 10.1021/jp502079f).
-
11)
-
8. Alper, J.P., Vincent, M., Carraro, C., et al: ‘Silicon carbide coated silicon nanowires as robust electrode material for aqueous micro-supercapacitor’, Appl. Phys. Lett., 2012, 100, p. 163901 (doi: 10.1063/1.4704187).
-
12)
-
16. Qi, D., Lu, N., Xu, H., et al: ‘Simple approach to wafer-scale self-cleaning antireflective silicon surfaces’, Langmuir, 2009, 25, pp. 7769–7772 (doi: 10.1021/la9013009).
-
13)
-
42. Lee, I.J., Paik, U., Park, J.G.: ‘Solar cell implemented with silicon nanowires on pyramid-texture silicon surface’, Sol. Energy, 2013, 91, pp. 256–262 (doi: 10.1016/j.solener.2013.02.010).
-
14)
-
14. Sun, G., Gao, T., Zhao, X., et al: ‘Fabrication of micro/nano dual-scale structures by improved deep reactive ion etching’, J. Micromech. Microeng., 2010, 20, p. 075028 (doi: 10.1088/0960-1317/20/7/075028).
-
15)
-
40. Srivastava, S.K., Kumar, D., Schmitt, S.W., et al: ‘Large area fabrication of vertical silicon nanowire arrays by silver-assisted single-step chemical etching and their formation kinetics’, Nanotechnology, 2014, 25, p. 175601 (doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/25/17/175601).
-
16)
-
14. Frankel, G.S.: ‘Pitting corrosion of metals a review of the critical factors’, Electrochem. Soc., 1998, 145, (6), pp. 2186–2198 (doi: 10.1149/1.1838615).
-
17)
-
13. Leem, J.W., Dudem, B., Yu, J.S.: ‘Biomimetic nano/micro double-textured silicon with outstanding antireflective and super-hydrophilic surfaces for high optical performance’, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, pp. 33757–33763 (doi: 10.1039/C7RA06444F).
-
18)
-
1. Tian, B., Zheng, X., Kempa, T.J., et al: ‘Coaxial silicon nanowires as solar cells and nanoelectronic power sources’, Nature, 2007, 449, pp. 885–889 (doi: 10.1038/nature06181).
-
19)
-
23. Fang, H., Wu, Y., Zhao, J., et al: ‘Silver catalysis in the fabrication of silicon nanowire arrays’, Nanotechnology, 2006, 17, pp. 3768–3774 (doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/17/15/026).
-
20)
-
35. Singh, P.K., Kumar, R., Lal, M., et al: ‘Effectiveness of anisotropic etching of silicon in aqueous alkaline solutions’, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 2001, 70, pp. 103–113 (doi: 10.1016/S0927-0248(00)00414-1).
-
21)
-
16. Huang, Z.P., Geyer, N., Werner, P., et al: ‘Metal-assisted chemical etching of silicon: a review’, Adv. Mater., 2011, 23, pp. 285–308 (doi: 10.1002/adma.201001784).
-
22)
-
26. Azeredo, B.P., Sadhu, J., Ma, J., et al: ‘Silicon nanowires with controlled sidewall profile and roughness fabricated by thin-film dewetting and metal-assisted chemical etching’, Nanotechnology, 2013, 24, p. 225305 (doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/24/22/225305).
-
23)
-
43. Kim, H., Cho, N.: ‘Morphological and nanostructural features of porous silicon prepared by electrochemical etching’, Nanoscale Res. Lett., 2012, 7, p. 408 (doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-7-408).
-
24)
-
7. Mehran, M., Sanaee, Z., Moajerzadeh, S.: ‘Formation of silicon nanograss and microstructures on silicon using deep reactive ion etching’, Micro Nano Lett., 2010, 5, pp. 374–378 (doi: 10.1049/mnl.2010.0111).
-
25)
-
36. Yang, C.R., Chen, P.Y., Chiou, Y.C., et al: ‘Effects of mechanical agitation and surfactant additive on silicon anisotropic etching in alkaline KOH solution’, Sens. Actuators A, 2005, 119, pp. 263–270 (doi: 10.1016/j.sna.2004.07.015).
-
26)
-
11. Zuev, D., Novodvorsky, O., Khaydukov, E., et al: ‘Fabrication of black multicrystalline silicon surface by nanosecond laser ablation’, Appl. Phys. B, Lasers Opt., 2011, 105, pp. 545–550 (doi: 10.1007/s00340-011-4625-x).
-
27)
-
9. Chang, S.W., Oh, J., Boles, S.T., et al: ‘Fabrication of silicon nanopillar-based nanocapacitor arrays’, Appl. Phys. Lett., 2010, 96, p. 153108 (doi: 10.1063/1.3374889).
-
28)
-
21. Peng, K., Wu, Y., Fang, H., et al: ‘Uniform, axial-orientation alignment of one-dimensional single-crystal silicon nanostructure arrays’, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 2005, 44, pp. 2737–2742 (doi: 10.1002/anie.200462995).
-
29)
-
5. Patolsky, F., Zheng, G., Lieber, C.M.: ‘Fabrication of silicon nanowire devices for ultrasensitive, label-free, real-time detection of biological and chemical species’, Nat. Protoc., 2006, 1, pp. 1711–1724 (doi: 10.1038/nprot.2006.227).
-
30)
-
29. Huang, Z., Fang, H., Zhu, J.: ‘Fabrication of silicon nanowire arrays with controlled diameter, length, and density’, Adv. Mater., 2007, 19, pp. 744–748 (doi: 10.1002/adma.200600892).
-
31)
-
17. Xiu, Y., Zhang, S., Yelundur, V., et al: ‘Superhydrophobic and low light reflectivity silicon surfaces fabricated by hierarchical etching’, Langmuir, 2008, 24, pp. 10421–10426 (doi: 10.1021/la801206m).
-
32)
-
4. Su, Z., Zhang, X.S., Hu, W., et al: ‘Fabrication of silicon hierarchical nanopillar arrays based on nanosphere lithography’, Micro Nano Lett., 2014, 9, pp. 655–659 (doi: 10.1049/mnl.2014.0260).
-
33)
-
20. Peng, K.Q., Hu, J.J., Yan, Y.J., et al: ‘Fabrication of single-crystalline silicon nanowires by scratching a silicon surface with catalytic metal particles’, Adv. Funct. Mater., 2006, 16, pp. 387–394 (doi: 10.1002/adfm.200500392).
-
34)
-
32. Huang, Z., Zhang, X., Reiche, M., et al: ‘Extended arrays of vertically aligned sub-10 nm diameter [100] Si nanowires by metal-assisted chemical etching’, Nano Lett., 2008, 8, pp. 3046–3051 (doi: 10.1021/nl802324y).
-
35)
-
30. Huang, Z., Shimizu, T., Senz, S., et al: ‘Ordered arrays of vertically aligned [110] silicon nanowires by suppressing the crystallographically preferred <100> etching directions’, Nano Lett., 2009, 9, pp. 2519–2525 (doi: 10.1021/nl803558n).
-
36)
-
31. Geyer, N., Fuhrmann, B., Huang, Z., et al: ‘Model for the mass transport during metal-assisted chemical etching with contiguous metal films as catalysts’, J. Phys. Chem. C, 2012, 116, pp. 13446–13451 (doi: 10.1021/jp3034227).
-
37)
-
25. Liu, R., Zhang, F., Con, C., et al: ‘Lithography-free fabrication of silicon nanowire and nanohole arrays by metal-assisted chemical etching’, Nanoscale Res. Lett., 2013, 8, p. 155 (doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-8-155).
-
38)
-
2. Chan, C.K., Peng, H., Liu, G., et al: ‘High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires’, Nat. Nano, 2008, 3, pp. 31–35 (doi: 10.1038/nnano.2007.411).
-
39)
-
27. Dou, B., Jia, R., Li, H., et al: ‘Maskless fabrication of selectively sized silicon nanostructures for solar cell application’, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, 2013, 24, p. 225305.
-
40)
-
28. Yeo, C., Kim, J.B., Song, Y.M., et al: ‘Antireflective silicon nanostructures with hydrophobicity by metal-assisted chemical etching for solar cell applications’, Nanoscale Res. Lett., 2013, 8, p. 159 (doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-8-159).
-
41)
-
37. Chu, A.K., Wang, J.S., Tsai, Z.Y., et al: ‘A simple and cost-effective approach for fabricating pyramids on crystalline silicon wafers’, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 2009, 93, pp. 1276–1280 (doi: 10.1016/j.solmat.2009.01.018).
-
42)
-
9. Zubel, I., Kramkowaka, M.: ‘The effect of isopropyl alcohol on etching rate and roughness of (100) Si surface etched in KOH and TMAH solutions’, Sens. Actuators A, 2001, 93, pp. 138–147 (doi: 10.1016/S0924-4247(01)00648-3).
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/mnl.2018.0185
Related content
content/journals/10.1049/mnl.2018.0185
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6