Natural occurrence of the diamond hexagonal structure in silicon nanowires grown by a plasma-assisted vapour-liquid-solid method

J. Tang (1) , Maurice J.L. (1) , F. Fossard (2) , I. Florea (1) , Chen W. (1) , Johnson E.V. (1) , M. Foldyna (1) , Yu L. (3) , P. Roca I Cabarrocas (1)

1 LPICM - Laboratoire de physique des interfaces et des couches minces [Palaiseau]
2 LEM - ONERA - CNRS - Laboratoire d'étude des microstructures [Châtillon]
3 EECS - School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science [Beijing]

Silicon nanowires have been grown by a plasma-assisted vapour–liquid–solid method using tin as the catalyst. Transmission electron microscopy in the [1-210] zone axis shows that the diamond hexagonal (P63/mmc) crystal structure is present in several nanowires. This is the first unambiguous proof of the natural occurrence of this metastable phase to our knowledge.

Mots clés: SILICIUM; NANOFILS; PLASMA

Domaines: Matériaux

J. Tang, Maurice J.L., F. Fossard, I. Florea, Chen W., et al.. Natural occurrence of the diamond hexagonal structure in silicon nanowires grown by a plasma-assisted vapour-liquid-solid method. Nanoscale, 2017, 9 (24), pp.8113-8118. ⟨10.1039/c7nr01299c⟩. ⟨hal-01632386⟩