Controlled growth of oriented amorphous silicon nanowires via a solid–liquid–solid (SLS) mechanism

Highly oriented amorphous silicon nanowires (a-SiNWs ) were grown on Si (1 1 1). The length and diameter of oriented SiNWs are almost uniform, which are View the MathML source and View the MathML source, respectively. Different from the well-known vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) for conventional whisker growth, it was found that growth of the a-SiNWs was controlled by a solid–liquid–solid mechanism (SLS). This synthesis method is simple and controllable. It may be useful in large-scale synthesis of various nanowires.