Preparation of highly aligned silicon oxide nanowires with stable intensive photoluminescence

In this work we report the successful formation of highly aligned vertical silicon oxide nanowires. The source of silicon was from the substrate itself without any additional source of silicon. X-ray measurement demonstrated that our nanowires are amorphous. Photoluminescence measurements were conducted through 18 months and indicated that there is a very good intensive emission peaks near the violet regions. The FTIR measurements indicated the existence of peaks at 463, 604, 795 and a wide peak at 1111 cm−1 and this can be attributed to Si–O–Si and Si–O stretching vibrations. We also report the formation of the octopus-like silicon oxide nanowires and the growth mechanism of these structures was discussed.