Pulsed PECVD for the Growth of Silicon Nanowires

Silicon nanowires of high density and high aspect ratio similar to those shown in the literature (Niu et al., 2004, Hofman et al., 2003) have been grown using a variation of plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) known as pulsed plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PPECVD) using a range of different modulation frequencies. For the range of frequencies used it was found that the presence of modulated silane plasma increases the average density and sample coverage of silicon nanowires. Both of these effects are proposed as being due to the increase in the number of times the plasma is struck and turned off during the deposition process. For low temperature growth of silicon nanowires the presence of pulsed silane plasma improves the density and sample coverage of silicon nanowires.