• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2003.02a
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• pp.172-172
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• 2003

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.43-43
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.215-216
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• 2013

The silicide is a compound of Si with an electropositive component. Silicides are commonly used in silicon-based microelectronics to reduce resistivity of gate and local interconnect metallization. The popular silicide candidates, CoSi2 and TiSi2, have some limitations. TiSi2 showed line width dependent sheet resistance and has difficulty in transformation of the C49 phase to the low resistive C54. CoSi2 consumes more Si than TiSi2. Nickel silicide is a promising material to substitute for those silicide materials providing several advantages; low resistivity, lower Si consumption and lower formation temperature. Nickel silicide (NiSi) nanowire (NW) has features of a geometrically tiny size in terms of diameter and significantly long directional length, with an excellent electrical conductivity. According to these advantages, NiSi NWs have been applied to various nanoscale applications, such as interconnects [1,2], field emitters [3], and functional microscopy tips [4]. Beside its tiny geometric feature, NW can provide a large surface area at a fixed volume. This makes the material viable for photovoltaic architecture, allowing it to be used to enhance the light-active region [5]. Additionally, a recent report has suggested that an effective antireflection coating-layer can be made with by NiSi NW arrays [6]. A unique growth mechanism of nickel silicide (NiSi) nanowires (NWs) was thermodynamically investigated. The reaction between Ni and Si primarily determines NiSi phases according to the deposition condition. Optimum growth conditions were found at $375^{\circ}C$ leading long and high-density NiSi NWs. The ignition of NiSi NWs is determined by the grain size due to the nucleation limited silicide reaction. A successive Ni diffusion through a silicide layer was traced from a NW grown sample. Otherwise Ni-rich or Si-rich phase induces a film type growth. This work demonstrates specific existence of NiSi NW growth [7].

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.125.2-125.2
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• 2016

Semiconductor nanowires are essential building blocks for various nanotechnologies including energy conversion, optoelectronics, and thermoelectric devices. Bottom-up synthetic approach utilizing metal catalyst and vapor phase precursor molecules (i.e., vapor - liquid - solid (VLS) method) is widely employed to grow semiconductor nanowires. Al has received attention as growth catalyst since it is free from contamination issue of Si nanowire leading to the deterioration of electrical properties. Al-catalyzed Si nanowire growth, however, unlike Au-Si system, has relatively narrow window for stable growth, showing highly tapered sidewall structure at high temperature condition. Although surface chemistry is generally known for its role on the crystal growth, it is still unclear how surface adsorbates such as hydrogen atoms and the nanowire sidewall morphology interrelate in VLS growth. Here, we use real-time in situ infrared spectroscopy to confirm the presence of surface hydrogen atoms chemisorbed on Si nanowire sidewalls grown from Al catalyst and demonstrate they are necessary to prevent unwanted tapering of nanowire. We analyze the surface coverage of hydrogen atoms quantitatively via comparison of Si-H vibration modes measured during growth with those obtained from postgrowth measurement. Our findings suggest that the surface adsorbed hydrogen plays a critical role in preventing nanowire sidewall tapering and provide new insights for the role of surface chemistry in VLS growth.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.499-499
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• 2011

Silicon nanowires (Si NWs) have been extensively studied for nanoelectronics owing to their unique optical and electrical properties different from those of bulk silicon. For the development of Si NW devices, better understanding of oxidation behavior in Si NWs would be an important issue. For example, it is widely known that atomic scale roughness at the dielectric (SiOx)/channel (Si) interface can significantly affect the device performance in the nano-scale devices. However, the oxidation process at the atomic-scale is still unknown because of its complexity. In the present work, we investigated the oxidation behavior of Si NW in atomic scale by simulating the dry oxidation process using a reactive molecular dynamics simulation technique. We focused on the residual stress evolution during oxidation to understand the stress effect on oxidation behavior of Si NWs having two different diameters, 5 nm and 10 nm. We calculated the charge distribution according to the oxidation time for 5 and 10 nm Si NWs. Judging from this data, it was observed that the surface oxide layer started to form before it is fully oxidized, i.e., the active diffusion of oxygen in the surface oxide layer. However, it is well-known that the oxide layer formation on the Si NWs results in a compressive stress on the surface which may retard the oxygen diffusion. We focused on the stress evolution of Si NWs during the oxidation process. Since the surface oxidation results in the volume expansion of the outer shell, it shows a compressive stress along the oxide layer. Interestingly, the stress for the 10 nm Si NW exhibits larger compressive stress than that of 5 nm Si NW. The difference of stress level between 5 an 10 anm Si NWs is approximately 1 or 2 GPa. Consequently, the diameter of Si NWs could be a significant factor to determine the self-limiting oxidation behavior of Si NWs when the diameter was very small.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.130-134
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• 2014

We have fabricated the selective emitter solar cell using double textured nanowires structure. The $40{\times}40mm2$-sized silicon substrates were textured to form the pyramid-shaped surface and the nanowires were fabricated by metal assisted chemical etching process using Ag nanoparticles, subsequently. The heavily doped and shallow emitters for selectiv eemitter solar cells were prepared through the thermal $POCl_3$ diffusion and chemical etch-back process, respectively. The front and rear electrodes were prepared following conventional screen printing method and the widths of fingers have been optimized. The selective emitter solar cell using double textured nanowires structure achieved a conversion efficiency of 17.9% with improved absorption and short circuit current density.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2007.08a
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• pp.382-382
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.407-407
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• 2014

Nanotechnology, especially vertically grown silicon nanowires, has gotten great attentions in biology due to characteristics of one dimensional nanostructure; controllable synthetic structure such as lengths, diameters, densities. Silicon nanowires are promising materials as nanoelectrodes due to their highly complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) - and bio-compatibility. Silicon nanowires are so intoxicated that are effective for bio molecular delivery and electrical stimulation. Vertical nanowires with integrated Au tips were fabricated for electrical intracellular interfacing with PC-12 cells. We have made synthesized two types of nanowire devices; one is multi-nanowires electrode for bio molecular sensing and electrical stimulation, and the other is single-nanowires electrode respectively. Here, we demonstrate that differentiation of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) treated PC-12 cells can be promoted depending on different magnitudes of electrical stimulation and density of Si NWs. It was fabricated by both bottom-up and top-down approaches using low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) with high vacuuming environment to electrically stimulate PC-12 cells. The effects of electrical stimulation with NGF on the morphological differentiation are observed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and it induces neural outgrowth. Moreover, the cell cytosol can be dyed selectively depending on the degree of differentiation along with fluorescence microscopy measurement. Vertically grown silicon nanowires have further expected advantages in case of single nanowire fabrication, and will be able to expand its characteristics to diverse applications.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.189-194
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• 2005

[ $SiO_2$ ] nanowires were synthesized using the catalyst evaporation method. Grown nanowires had different shapes by kind of used metal catalyst. Mean diameters of grown $SiO_2$ nanowire were about 30 nm. The kind of catalysts affected microstructure of grown $SiO_2$ nanowire because of its typical growth reactions through the liquid state metal catalysts. Optical property were measured by photoluminescence spectroscopy. Relatively broad peak was obtained and mean peak positioned at 450 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.179.1-179.1
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• 2014

Si nanowires have exhibited unique optical characteristics, including nano-antenna effects due to the guided mode resonance, significant optical absorption enhancement in wide wavelength and incident angle range due to resonant optical modes, graded refractive index, and scattering. Since Si poor optical absorption coefficient due to indirect bandgap, all such properties have stimulated proposal of new optoelectronic devices whose performance can surpass that of conventional planar devices. We have carried out finite-difference time-domain simulation studies to design optimal Si nanowire array for solar cell applications. Optical reflectance, transmission, and absorption can be calculated for nanowire arrays with various diameter, length, and period. From the absorption, maximum achievable photocurrent can be estimated. In real devices, serious recombination loss occurring at the surface states is known to limit the photovoltaic performance of the nanowire-based solar cells. In order to address such issue, we will discuss how the geometric parameters of the array can influence the spatial distribution of the optical field (resulting optical generation rate) in the nanowires.