Guided growth of in-plane silicon nanowires

We report on a guided growth of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) based on an in-plane solid-liquid-solid mechanism, which provides a general strategy to deploy SiNWs precisely into desired circuits. During a reacting-gas-free annealing process, the SiNWs are activated to grow and be guided into predefined patterns by effective controlling the movement of the catalyst drops. We demonstrate three different approaches to achieve a guided growth of SiNWs, which are as follows: (1) by an a-Si: H channel, (2) by a step edge, and (3) by an a-Si : H edge. These results provide a design principle for future SiNWs-based nanodevices. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. (doi: 10.1063/1.3227667)