Silicon nanowires grown from copper oxalate

Si nanowires (SiNWs) have been synthesized facilely from products in the thermal decomposition of copper oxalate in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system by the vapor–solid–solid (VSS) mechanism. Raman investigations showed that the phonon confinement appeared in the grown SiNWs. We found the mechanism of catalyst formation to be that the initial copper oxalate micro balls were thermally decomposed to fabricate Cu and Cu2O nanoparticles, which reacted with silane sequentially to form Cu3Si, serving as the nuclei for the sequential VSS growth of SiNWs.