The Development of High-Density Vertical Silicon Nanowires and Their Application in a Heterojunction Diode

Wen-Chung Chang; Sheng-Chien Su; Chia-Ching Wu

doi:10.3390/ma9070534

The Development of High-Density Vertical Silicon Nanowires and Their Application in a Heterojunction Diode

Materials (Basel). 2016 Jun 30;9(7):534. doi: 10.3390/ma9070534.

Authors

Wen-Chung Chang¹, Sheng-Chien Su², Chia-Ching Wu³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronic Engineering, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan 71005, Taiwan. changwc@stust.edu.tw.
² Department of Electronic Engineering, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan 71005, Taiwan. ct6288@gmail.com.
³ Department of Electronic Engineering, Kao Yuan University, Kaohsiung 82151, Taiwan. t10068@cc.kyu.edu.tw.

Abstract

Vertically aligned p-type silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays were fabricated through metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) of Si wafers. An indium tin oxide/indium zinc oxide/silicon nanowire (ITO/IZO/SiNW) heterojunction diode was formed by depositing ITO and IZO thin films on the vertically aligned SiNW arrays. The structural and electrical properties of the resulting ITO/IZO/SiNW heterojunction diode were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. Nonlinear and rectifying I-V properties confirmed that a heterojunction diode was successfully formed in the ITO/IZO/SiNW structure. The diode had a well-defined rectifying behavior, with a rectification ratio of 550.7 at 3 V and a turn-on voltage of 2.53 V under dark conditions.

Keywords: heterojunction diode; indium tin oxide; indium zinc oxide; silicon nanowire.