Catalyst synthesis of silicon-based Zn₂SiO₄-SiO _x heterostructure nanowires

In this paper, a simple catalyst synthesis strategy for the preparation of Si-based heterostructure nanowires has been reported. The heterostructure nanowires with 800 nm in length and 20^- nm in diameter are composed of Zn₂SiO₄ and SiO_x nanowires in which die upper part is Zn₂SiO₄ nanowires and the lower part rooted to the Si substrate is SiO_x nanowires. Zn droplets catalyze the growth of SiO_x nanowires first, followed by each SiO_x nanowire splitting to several sub-branches of SiO_x nanowires, and Zn₂SiO₄ nanowires are formed at the end of the growth. It was found that the Si-based heterostructure nanowires form only at the relative low temperature. A dichromatic emission resulted respectively from SiO _x and Zn₂SiO₄further proves the heterostructure. A possible growth mechanism was proposed to better understand the formation of the silicon-based heterostructure.