A method combining laser ablation cluster formation and vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth was developed for the synthesis of semiconductor nanowires. In this process, laser ablation was used to prepare nanometer-diameter catalyst clusters that define the size of wires produced by VLS growth. This approach was used to prepare bulk quantities of uniform single-crystal silicon and germanium nanowire...

Semiconductor nanowires have become an important building block for nanotechnology. The growth of semiconductor nanowires using a metal catalyst via the vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) or vapor–solid–solid (VSS) mechanism has yielded growth directions in 〈1 1 1〉, 〈1 0 0〉 and 〈1 1 0〉 etc. In this paper, we summarize and discuss a broad range of factors that affect the growth direction of VLS or VSS gro...

Au nanoparticles are efficient catalysts for the vapour–solid–liquid (VLS) growth of semiconductor nanowires, but Au poses fundamental reliability concerns for applications in Si semiconductor technology. In this work we show that the choice of catalysts for Si nanowire growth can be broadened when the need for catalytic precursor dissociation is eliminated through the use of plasma enhancement...

Silicon nanowires have been identified as important components for future electronic and sensor nanodevices. So far gold has dominated as the catalyst for growing Si nanowires via the vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism. Unfortunately, gold traps electrons and holes in Si and poses a serious contamination problem for Si complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing. Although there a...

Nanowire growth by the vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) process enables a high level of control over nanowire composition, diameter, growth direction, branching and kinking, periodic twinning, and crystal structure. The tremendous impact of VLS-grown nanowires is due to this structural versatility, generating applications ranging from solid-state lighting and single-photon sources to thermoelectric de...