Optimizing the chemical synthesis of nanomaterials for electro mechanical applications

Abstract

Silicon (Si) is the most important material for the electronics industry. Its unique electronic, optoelectronic, thermal and mechanical properties have made Si an ideal choice for integrated circuits, memory devices, solar cells, and Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS). Considering one dimensional (1D) nanomaterials, carbon nano tubes, silicon nanowires, and Si nanostructured array is the primary choice, because of its largely improved, different, and/or unique properties at the nano meter scale. As the sizes of MEMS approach Nano Electro Mechanical Systems (NEMS), exploration of the changes of mechanical properties on the nano meter scale is vitally important. Silicon Nanostructures (SiNs) are the key building blocks of future electronics. They exhibit excellent mechanical, electrical and optical properties, in addition to interesting multi-functional properties such as piezo resistivity and thermo electricity. As such, SiNs have been used in a broad range of applications including nano electronics, nano resonators, light-emitting diodes, nano sensors and thermo electric energy scavengers. The operation and reliability of these nano devices depend on the mechanical properties of SiNs, which are expected to be different from their bulk counter parts due to their increasing surface-tovolume ratio. The SiNs used for this research experiments were fabricated by metal assisted chemical etching method. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image of an as-grown SiNs, revealing its structure and the diameters of the Ns are below 100 nm. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the SiNs shows a diffraction pattern, revealing the single-crystalline structure of the Ns. Several approaches have been developed to study the mechanical behaviour of Si nanowires. The existing literature reports progress in observing the phenomenon of plasticity and in measuring the elastic modulus of single Ns or Ns arrays. Nano Indentation (NI) has been widely used to determine the mechanical properties of many kinds of materials for years. The easy application processes of NI experiments make it very attractive to researchers. Several indentation methods and calculation theories have been created for the characterization of the mechanical properties of the materials for a century. Until the past two decades, these methods mostly focused on finding the hardness values of solids. For these purposes, different size and different shape indenters were created. newline