Dear Colleagues,

The first semiconductor microwires were grown in 1964 using the vapor–liquid–solid method. At the beginning of the 2000s, rapid development of semiconductor nanowires took place through the use of modern epitaxy techniques. This resulted in tremendous progress in their synthesis, characterization, and applications. One important advantage of nanowires is that they enable efficient relaxation of elastic stress, induced by lattice mismatch, thus enabling dislocation-free growth on dissimilar substrates (such as silicon for III–V nanowires) and in nanowire heterostructures. Semiconductor nanowires are now widely considered to be fundamental in nanoscience and nanotechnology. This Special Issue will share the latest achievements in and fundamental studies of the preparation and applications of nanowires in different material systems. Emphasis will be placed on synthesis methods for the fabrication of highly regular arrays of nanowires; ternary III–V nanowires and heterostructures based on them; morphological and crystal phase control in nanowires; advanced characterization techniques; fundamental studies of low-temperature transport; and nanowire applications in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics.

Prof. Dr. Vladimir Dubrovskii
Guest Editor

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• semiconductor nanowires
• vapor–liquid–solid growth
• selective area growth
• ternary III–V nanowires
• nanowire heterostructures
• growth modeling
• optical and structural characterization
• crystal phase
• applications of nanowires

Title: Evolution of Cu-In catalyst nanoparticles under plasma treatment during silicon nanowire growth
Authors: Weixi Wang, Eric Ngo, Ileana Florea, Pavel Bulkin, Martin Foldyna, Pere Roca i Cabarrocas, Erik V. Johnson, and Jean-Luc Maurice
Affiliation: LPICM, École polytechnique, CNRS, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France
Abstract: We report silicon nanowire (SiNW) growth with a novel Cu-In bimetallic catalyst using a PECVD method. We study the structure of the catalyst nanoparticles (NPs) througout the SiNW growth process. Plasma treatment is responsible for crystallization and reactions of the Cu-In NPs: a hydrogen plasma pre-treatment at 200 °C induces the crystallization of the amorphous as-deposited NPs; a hydrogen-silane plasma at 416 °C during SiNW growth can induce a phase transformation to Cu7In3; while a hydrogen plasma treatment at 416 °C without SiH4 can lead to the formation of the Cu11In9 phase. The SiNWs synthesis with Cu-In bimetallic catalyst NPs has followed a VSS process. By adjusting the catalyst composition, we manage to obtain small-diameter SiNWs - below 10 nm, among which we observe the metastable hexagonal diamond phase of Si in TEM, which is predicted to have a direct bandgap.