Premium
In‐situ Observations of Nanoscale Effects in Germanium Nanowire Growth with Ternary Eutectic Alloys
Author(s) -
Biswas Subhajit,
O'Regan Colm,
Morris Michael A.,
Holmes Justin D.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201401240
Subject(s) - nanowire , materials science , eutectic system , ternary operation , germanium , kinetics , vapor–liquid–solid method , alloy , nanotechnology , chemical engineering , metallurgy , silicon , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language , computer science , engineering
Vapour‐liquid‐solid (VLS) techniques are popular routes for the scalable synthesis of semiconductor nanowires. In this article, in‐situ electron microscopy is used to correlate the equilibrium content of ternary (Au 0.75 Ag 0.25 –Ge and Au 0.65 Ag 0.35 –Ge) metastable alloys with the kinetics, thermodynamics and diameter of Ge nanowires grown via a VLS mechanism. The shape and geometry of the heterogeneous interfaces between the liquid eutectic and solid Ge nanowires varies as a function of nanowire diameter and eutectic alloy composition. The behaviour of the faceted heterogeneous liquid–solid interface correlates with the growth kinetics of the nanowires, where the main growth facet at the solid nanowire–liquid catalyst drop contact line lengthens for faster nanowire growth kinetics. Pronounced diameter dependent growth kinetics, as inferred from liquid–solid interfacial behaviour, is apparent for the synthesised nanowires. Direct in‐situ microscopy observations facilitates the comparison between the nanowire growth behaviour from ternary (Au–Ag–Ge) and binary (Au–Ge) eutectic systems.