Plasma synthesis of single-crystal silicon nanoparticles for novel electronic device applications

Single-crystal nanoparticles of silicon, several tens of nanometres in diameter, may be suitable as building blocks for single-nanoparticle electronic devices. Previous studies of nanoparticles produced in low-pressure plasmas have demonstrated the synthesis of nanocrystals 2-10nm diameter but larger particles were amorphous or polycrystalline. This work reports the use of a constricted, filamentary capacitively coupled low-pressure plasma to produce single-crystal silicon nanoparticles with diameters between 20 and 80nm. Particles are highly oriented with predominantly cubic shape. The particle size distribution is rather monodisperse. Electron microscopy studies confirm that the nanoparticles are highly oriented diamond-cubic silicon.