Towards Silicon-Nanowire-Structured Materials by the Intimate Mixing of Patterning the Solid State and Chemical Reactions

Here we describe a simple and effective approach to make silicon-based-nanowires structured materials which can be utilized in a range of high technology electronic devices. The strategy for achieving this objective is to create platforms by lithographic patterning on which the diffusion length of reactive species is controlled during the subsequent heat treatment leading to the growth of aligned and linear nanowires. With this simple and versatile method, a large quantity of nanowires can be readily arranged into interesting configurations. This method is proving very promising for a variety of applications, all of which require considerable selectivity and reproducibility in terms of size, shape and structure, to ensure reliability during their use.