Journal of Electron Microscopy Advance Access originally published online on March 23, 2006
Journal of Electron Microscopy 2005 54(6):485-491; doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfi077
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Synthesis and microstructure of Cd4SiS6/Si composite nanowires
1 Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
2 International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS) National Institute for Materials Science Namiki 1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ZHAN.Jinhua{at}nims.go.jp
Cd4SiS6/Si composite nanowires are produced through co-thermal evaporation of CdS and Si powders with a small amount of tin sulfide as an additive. A vaporliquidsolid growth mechanism is proposed for the anisotropic growth of the composite nanowires based on the presence of metallic tin particles at their tip-ends. Both side-by-side and core-shell composite nanowires are obtained. The product is characterized using X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Detailed structural and chemical analyses of individual composite nanowires are carried out using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), electron diffraction (ED) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Planar defects, including microtwins and stacking faults, are abundant in a Si core, as revealed by HRTEM and selected-area ED. The formation of composite nanowires is discussed in the light of thermodynamic and kinetic aspects.
Keywords semiconductors, nanowires, composite, silicon, cadmium sulfide, thermal evaporation
Received 18 January 2005, accepted 13 January 2006