Ion Implanted SiO 2 Substrates for Nucleating Silicon Oxide Nanowire Growth
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1181-DD07-03
Ion Implanted SiO2 Substrates for Nucleating Silicon Oxide Nanowire Growth Jason L. Johnson, Yongho Choi, and Ant Ural Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA ABSTRACT We experimentally demonstrate a simple and efficient approach for silicon oxide nanowire growth by implanting Fe+ ions into thermally grown SiO2 layers on Si wafers and subsequently annealing in argon and hydrogen to nucleate silicon oxide nanowires. We study the effect of implantation dose and energy, growth temperature, and H2 gas flow on the SiOx nanowire growth. We find that sufficiently high implant dose, high growth temperature, and the presence of H2 gas flow are crucial parameters for silicon oxide nanowire growth. We also demonstrate the patterned growth of silicon oxide nanowires in localized areas by lithographic patterning and etching of the implanted SiO2 substrates before growth. This works opens up the possibility of growing silicon oxide nanowires directly from solid substrates, controlling the location of nanowires at the submicron scale, and integrating them into nonplanar three-dimensional nanoscale device structures. INTRODUCTION One-dimensional (1D) nanostructures, such as nanotubes and nanowires, have attracted significant research attention in recent years due to their unique structural and electronic properties. Controlled growth and synthesis of such 1D nanostructures remain an active research area. SiO2 is a material which is of great technological importance in silicon VLSI technology. Nanowires of silicon oxide have a great potential in applications such as low dimensional waveguides, scanning near-field optical microscopy, blue light emitters, nanoscale optical devices and sensors, sacrificial templates, and biosensors [1-3]. Several methods have been used to grow silicon oxide nanowires, such as laser ablation [2], thermal evaporation [4], and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [5]. In most of these cases, a growth model based on the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mechanism [6] has been used to explain the observed results. An essential component of the VLS growth process is the nanoscale catalyst particles required to nucleate the growth of nanowires. For example, several recent studies have demonstrated the growth of silicon oxide nanowires from a variety of different catalyst nanoparticles, including sputtered or evaporated metal thin films [1,7] and molten Ga [5]. In some of these studies, Si was supplied as a powder [2, 4] or in gaseous phase as silane (SiH4) [5]. In another study, the catalyst material was deposited directly on the Si substrate [1]. Nanoscale catalyst particles formed from deposited thin films and powders are typically difficult to pattern into very small dimensions or into nonplanar three-dimensional (3D) device structures, such as the sidewalls of high aspect ratio trenches [8]. An alternative catalyst deposition technique, which has not been studied as much [3, 8-11], is to use ion implantation and subsequent annealing
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