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Silicon Nanowires as a Potential Material for Terahertz Applications

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Advanced Materials for Future Terahertz Devices, Circuits and Systems

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 727))

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Abstract

Terahertz is an important but underutilized frequency range which lies in between 0.3 and 10 THz in electromagnetic spectrum, occupying middle ground of both microwave and infrared region. It can carry few properties of both the wavelengths. As conventional electronic devices have failed to generate and detect the terahertz wave, there is a high demand to find alternatives. Silicon nanowire and its geometry are still under research as terahertz emitter. Here, two-stage metal-assisted chemical etching (MaCE) process has been employed to synthesize the grass like silicon nanowires. The lengths and diameters of the nanowires are modified by varying different conditions. The silicon nanowires (SiNW) without HF treatment contain superficial silicon oxide layer which is different in properties compare to HF treated SiNW (SiNW-HF). It is evident that, HF/H2O2 etching rate has been enhanced with the rise of the temperature, which results in highly dense, more fine nanowires in the same area (SiNW-HF-T). Additionally, by providing a carbon made conductive back, the etching rate of silicon wafer is enhanced in a particular orientation (SiNW-HF/C). SiNW, SiNW-HF, SiNW-HF-T, and SiNW-HF/C consist of silicon nanowires with average length of 1.6 μm, 3 μm, 7 μm, and 14.4 μm, respectively. Here, two important mechanisms are proposed for utilizing silicon nanowires as terahertz emitter. As terahertz detector, silicon nanowires have few shortcomings. To overcome such difficulties, silicon nanowire-reduced graphene oxide (SiNW-HF-T/RGO(s) &SiNW-HF-T/RGO(h)) hybrid is synthesized in different methods. Deposition of RGO on silicon nanowires enhances the roughness to an extent that hydrophilic nature of the nanowire is converted into hydrophobic for SiNW-HF-T/RGO(s). This material can be utilized as broadband photodetector from visible to terahertz range.

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Acknowledgements

One of us (SG) wishes to thank the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Government of India, for providing her a senior research fellowship through “CSIR-SRF” (File no: 09/096(0926)/2018-EMR-I) while other (AC) wants to thank Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP phase III scheme, Jadavpur University) for providing fellowship during the work. The authors wish to acknowledge the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Government of India for the support under the “University with Potential for Excellence (UPE-II)” scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700032, India

    Shrabani Ghosh, Ankita Chandra, Sourav Sarkar & K. K. Chattopadhyay

  2. Thin Film and Nano Science Laboratory, Department of Physics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700032, India

    K. K. Chattopadhyay

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  1. Shrabani Ghosh
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  2. Ankita Chandra
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Correspondence to K. K. Chattopadhyay .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Cooch Behar Government Engineering College, Cooch Behar, India

    Aritra Acharyya

  2. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Cooch Behar Government Engineering College, Cooch Behar, India

    Palash Das

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Ghosh, S., Chandra, A., Sarkar, S., Chattopadhyay, K.K. (2021). Silicon Nanowires as a Potential Material for Terahertz Applications. In: Acharyya, A., Das, P. (eds) Advanced Materials for Future Terahertz Devices, Circuits and Systems. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 727. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4489-1_10

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