Bottom-up 1-D nanowires and their applications

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the study of bottom-up synthesis of single-crystalline NiSi nanowires and SiGe nanowires via a bottom-up approach using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. First, the growth mechanism of NiSi nanowire was systematically investigated and a detailed growth model was proposed based on experimental results, and the synthesis temperature was found to control the diameters of NiSi nanowires with an activation energy of ~1.72 eV. Secondly, long and uniform SiGe nanowires with a high concentration of Ge and various diameters were obtained using Au-catalyzed growth. It was found that the composition varies along the nanowire stem, also depends on the diameter of the nanowire.