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Growth of silicon nanowires in aqueous solution under atmospheric pressure

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An Erratum to this article was published on 24 August 2014

Abstract

A new method for growing silicon nanowires is presented. They were grown in an aqueous solution at a temperature of 85 °C under atmospheric pressure by using sodium methylsiliconate as a water-soluble silicon precursor. The structure, morphology, and composition of the as-grown nanowires were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry. It was also confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy that the silicon nanowire has a hexagonal structure. It was possible to grow the crystalline silicon nanowires at low temperature under atmospheric pressure because potassium iodide, which was used as a gold etchant, sufficiently increased the surface energy and reactivity of gold as a metal catalyst for the reaction of the Si precursor even at low temperature.

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Correspondence to Nae-Man Park.

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Park, NM., Choi, CJ. Growth of silicon nanowires in aqueous solution under atmospheric pressure. Nano Res. 7, 898–902 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0451-x

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