Tent--Shaped Surface Morphologies of Silicon: Texturization by Metal Induced Etching

Nano--metal/semiconductor junction dependent porosification of silicon (Si) has been studied here. The silicon (Si) nanostructures (NS) have been textured on n-- and p-- type silicon wafers using Ag and Au metal nano particles induced chemical etching. The combinations of n--Si/Ag and p--Si/Au form ohmic contact and result in the same texturization on the Si surface on porosification where tent--shaped morphology has been observed consistently with n-- and p--type Si. Whereas, porosification result in different surface texturization for other two combinations (p--Si/Ag and n--Si/Au) where Schottkey contacts are formed. Quantitative analysis have been done using ImageJ to process the SEM images of SiNS, which confirms that the tent like SiNS are formed when etching of silicon wafer is done by AgNPs and AuNPs on n and p type Si wafer respectively. These easily prepared sharp tent--shaped Si NSs can be used for enhanced field emission applications.