Fabrication of crystalline silicon nanowires coated with graphene from graphene oxide on amorphous silicon substrate using excimer laser

Abstract

In this work, we report a single-step graphene-coated crystalline silicon nanowires (SiNWs) manufacturing technique. We report a one-step fabrication technique of SiNWscoated reduced graphene oxide using a krypton fluoride (KrF) excimer laser. The SiNWs have been manufactured by redistributing the silicon mass within the sample without etching any of the deposited amorphous silicon (a-Si) and then adding a synthesized graphene oxide suspension using the modified Hummers' method. The process is optimized to ensure that the graphene is completely reduced and that the crystalline nanowires are formed. In order to allow full control of the dimension of the generated nanowires, the properties of the excimer laser have been investigated. Additionally, graphene-coated Si nanowires have also been synthesized to be used for gas-sensing applications in the future. In this work, we are eviting the repetition of the previously published work by the same research group for the sake of brevity. But the reader can refer to the previously published work on the study of the effect of different parameters on the SiNWs growth like the study of the effect of changing the normalized frequency on the size of the grown SiNWs in terms of length and diameter as well as other parameters mentioned in the previously published work in the references.