Selective growth of silica nanowires in silicon catalysed by Pt thin film

Abstract

Selective growth of amorphous silica nanowires on a silicon wafer deposited with Pt thin film is reported. The mechanism of nanowire growth has been established to follow the vapour liquid solid (VLS) model via the PtSi phase acting as the catalyst. Nanowires grow with diameters ranging from 50 to 500nm. These bottom-up grown nanowires exhibit photoluminescence with a stable emission of blue light at 430nm under excitation. The effect of varying the seed layer thickness (Pt film) from 2 to 100nm has been studied. It is observed that, above 10nm thickness, a continuous layer of Pt2Si re-solidifies on the surface, inhibiting the growth of nanowires. The selectivity to the Pt thickness has been exploited to create regions of nanowires connected to conducting silicide (Pt2Si) simultaneously in a single furnace treatment. This novel approach has opened the gateways for realizing hybrid interconnects in silicon for various nano-optical applications such as the localization of light, low-dimensional waveguides for functional microphotonics, scanning near-field microscopy, and nanoantennae. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.