Abstract
One-dimensional semiconductor nanowires are a promising candidate for future electronic devices. The epitaxial growth of nanowires is often mediated by metal seed particles, usually gold particles. In this paper the setup of a simple and robust technique to generate nanometer-sized aerosol gold particles by spark discharge is described. Furthermore we demonstrate for the first time that particles generated by spark discharge can be used to design advanced nanoelectronic structures, namely nanowires. In order to obtain compact, spherical particles suitable for nanowire growth, the sparkgenerated agglomerate particles were reshaped in a special compaction furnace. The reshaped particles were used to seed the growth of epitaxial GaP and InP nanowires, by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy, which was shown to be a reliable and reproducible method. This work indicates the possibility of using spark-discharge generated gold particles for the creation of new electronic devices even at large scale processing.
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Maria E. Messing obtained her Master degree in Engineering Nanoscience 2007 at Lund University in Sweden and she is now a PhD student at Division of Solid State Physics in Lund. Her research activities include the production and characterization of nanometer-sized aerosol particles and semiconductor nanowires.
Kimberly A. Dick is a post-doctoral researcher in solid state physics at Lund University Sweden, where she also received her PhD in 2007. She completed her undergraduate studies in chemical physics in Canada and the United States before moving to Sweden in 2003. Her research focuses on fabrication and structural characterization of III–V nanowires and branched nanowire structures with particular interest in nanowire growth mechanisms.
L. Reine Wallenberg is a professor of solid-state chemistry at Lund University in Sweden, where he has been since 2000. He also is the director of the National Center for High-Resolution Electron Microscopy (nCHREM) and one of the founders of Lund’s Nanometer Structure Consortium. He received his PhD degree from Lund in 1987. His research interests include nanowires and nanoparticles, catalysts, mesoporous materials, and electron microscopy techniques for inorganic and biological materials.
Knut Deppert is a professor at Division of Solid State Physics at Lund University in Sweden. He studied crystallography at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he obtained his PhD degree in 1985. At Lund University, his research centers on the application of aerosol methods to generate novel nanomaterials and nanodevices, in particular, size selected semiconductor nanoparticles and the creation of one-dimensional semiconductor structures. He is also vice director of the university’s education program on Engineering Nanoscience.
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Messing, M.E., Dick, K.A., Wallenberg, L.R. et al. Generation of size-selected gold nanoparticles by spark discharge — for growth of epitaxial nanowires. Gold Bull 42, 20–26 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03214902
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03214902