Self-extrusion of Te nanowire from Si-Sb-Te thin films

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 93; no. 18; pp. 183113 - 183113-3
• Main Authors: Cheng, Y., Han, X. D., Liu, X. Q., Zheng, K., Zhang, Z., Zhang, T., Song, Z. T., Liu, B., Feng, S. L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Physics 03-11-2008
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.3013513

A crystallized
Si
2
Sb
2
Te
5
thin film was observed to extrude single-crystalline [0001] oriented tellurium nanowires at room temperature. The single crystalline Te nanowires nucleation and extruded outgrowth can be greatly accelerated by electron-beam-illumination (EBI) in a transmission electron microscope by an order as high as four. The EBI-enhanced outgrowth speed of Te nanowires is a function of electron beam flux and can be described as
v
=
k
ln
(
J
+
m
)
.
This Te nanowires self-outflow phenomenon comes from a decomposition process of the
Si
2
Sb
2
Te
5
matrix and provides an interesting model and mechanism of the nanowires' growth, which is distinctive to the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism.