Studies of epitaxial silicon nanowire growth by the vapor-liquid-solid mechanism

Silicon nanowires were grown epitaxially on Si (100) and (111) surfaces using the Vapor-Liquid-Solid (VLS) mechanism under both thermal and plasma enhanced growth conditions. Silane and disilane were used as source gases. Plasma excitation at low growth temperatures is found to strongly enhance nanowire growth rates and promote the nucleation of smaller diameter <110> oriented silicon nanowires relative to the larger diameter <111> nanowires. The higher nucleation rate for <110> nanowires during plasma excitation is attributed to a plasma-induced increase in silicon chemical potential. From this study, plasma excitation can be concluded to enable an additional degree of control over nanowire orientation. In low power radio frequency silane plasma, SiH3 are the dominant radical species in the gas phase. These reactive radicals formed in the plasma "bypass" the SiH 4 → SiH3 decomposition step on the liquid AuSi interface required for growth under thermal growth conditions, thereby leading to faster incorporation rates into the melt and hence promoting higher growth rates. Also consistent with this interpretation is the strong reduction in nucleation times in the presence of plasma. The nanowire growth rate shows a linear dependence with plasma power. The activation energy decreases from 0.78 eV under thermal growth conditions to 0.23 eV for a 2.5 W radio frequency plasma stimulated conditions. This decreased activation energy for growth under plasma excitation indicates that the rate limiting step for VLS growth of Si nanowires using Au as a catalyst is at the vapor-liquid interface. The growth under plasma conditions is dominated by the plasma influenced decomposition step and this strong reduction in the activation energy under silane plasma is consistent with a change in the rate limiting step. Growth kinetics between silane and disilane reveals an incorporation coefficient of Si, 60 to 80 times higher with disilane. This results in higher growth rates with disilane molecules and is due to the higher reactivity of disilane molecules. A linear relationship between growth rate and partial pressure of disilane has been observed. Plasma excitation thus provides key new information to better understand the rate determining factors for silicon nanowire growth.