Effect of acid vapor etching on morphological and opto-electric properties of flat silicon and silicon nanowire arrays: A comparative study

In this paper, we report a comparative study between porous silicon (pSi) and porous silicon nanowires (pSiNWs). Acid Vapor Etching (AVE) treatment has been used to perform porous structure on flat Si and SiNWs array substrates respectively. SiNW structure is prepared by the widely used Silver catalyzed etching method. SEM and TEM images show that AVE treatment induces porous structure in the whole Si wafer and the SiNW sidewall. Comparatively to pSi, pSiNWs exhibit a low reflectivity in the whole spectral range which decreases with etching duration. However, the reflectivity of pSi changes with porous layer thickness. Both pSi and pSiNWs exhibit a significant PL peak situated at 2 eV. PL peaks are attributed to the quantum confinement effect in the silicon nanocrystallites (SiNCs). We discussed the significant enhancement in the peak intensities and a shift toward lower energy displayed in Raman spectra for both pSi and pSiNWs. We reported a correlative study of the AVE treatment effect on the minority carrier life time of flat silicon and SiNW arrays with the passivation effect of chemical induced silicon oxides highlighted by FTIR spectra.