Skip to main content

Carrier dynamics in Si nanowires fabricated by metal-assisted chemical etching

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

H. Tang
L.-G. Zhu
L. Zhao
X. Zhang
J. Shan
S.-T. Lee

Abstract

Silicon nanowire arrays fabricated by metal-assisted wet chemical etching have emerged as a promising architecture for solar energy harvesting applications. Here we investigate the dynamics and transport properties of photoexcited carriers in nanowires derived from an intrinsic silicon wafer using the terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy. Both the dynamics and the pump fluence dependence of the photoinduced complex conductivity spectra up to several THz were measured. The photoinduced conductivity spectra follow a Lorentz dependence, arising from surface plasmon resonances in nanowires. The carrier lifetime was observed to approach 0.7 ns, which is limited primarily by surface trapping. The intrinsic carrier mobility was found to be ∼1000 cm 2/(V·s). Compared to other silicon nanostructures, these relative high values observed for both the carrier lifetime and mobility are the consequences of high crystallinity and surface quality of the nanowires fabricated by the metal-assisted wet chemical etching method. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

Date Published

Journal

ACS Nano

Volume

6

Issue

9

Number of Pages

7814-7819,

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84866635682&doi=10.1021%2fnn301891s&partnerID=40&md5=ffcfa7c00a5c73bd8077c75f83136e53

DOI

10.1021/nn301891s

Group (Lab)

Jie Shan Group

Funding Source

0907477

Download citation