Effects of silver and gold catalytic activities on the structural and optical properties of silicon nanowires

• The optimum catalysts layer thickness and formation of different silicon nanostructure.
• The effect of catalyst type and thickness on the structural properties of SiNWs.
• The effect of catalyst type on the optical properties of SiNWs.
• The origin of PL spectrum of Au and Ag etched SiNWs.

The metal-assisted chemical etching of silicon in an aqueous solution of hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen peroxide is established for the fabrication of large area, uniform silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays. In this study, silver (Ag) and gold (Au) are considered as catalysts and the effect of different catalysts with various thicknesses on the structural and optical properties of the fabricated SiNWs is investigated. The morphology of deposited catalysts on the silicon wafer is characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). It is shown that the morphology of the fabricated silicon nanostructures remarkably depends upon the catalyst layer thickness, and the catalyst etching time directly affects the structural and optical properties of the synthesized SiNWs. FESEM images show a linear increment of the nanowire length versus time, whereas the etching rate for the Au-etched SiNWs was lower than the Ag-etched ones. Strong light scattering in SiNWs caused the total reflection to decrease in the range of visible light, and this decrement was higher for the Ag-etched SiNW sample, with a longer length than the Au-etched one. A broadband visible photoluminescence (PL) with different peak positions is observed for the Au- and Ag-etched samples. The synthesized optically active SiNWs can be considered as a promising candidate for a new generation of nano-scale opto-electronic devices.