Query: Metal‐Assisted Chemical Etching of Silicon: A Review

Candidate papers:

abstract: This article presents an overview of the essential aspects in the fabrication of silicon and some silicon/germanium nanostructures by metal assisted chemical etching. First, the basic process and mechanism of metal assisted chemical etching is introduced. Then, the various influences of the noble metal, the etchant, temperature, illumination, and intrinsic properties of the silicon substrate (e.g. orientation, doping type, doping level) are presented. The anisotropic and the isotropic etching behaviors of silicon under various conditions are presented. Template based metal assisted chemical etching methods are introduced, including templates based on nanosphere lithography, anodic aluminum oxide masks, interference lithography, and block copolymer masks. The metal assisted chemical etching of other semiconductors is also introduced. A brief introduction to the application of Si nanostructures obtained by metal assisted chemical etching is given, demonstrating the promising potential applications of metal assisted chemical etching. Finally, some open questions in the understanding of metal assisted chemical etching are compiled.
author_names: Zhipeng Huang

Nadine Geyer

P Werner

Johannes de Boor

U Gosele
title: Metal assisted chemical etching of silicon: a review.
venue: Advanced materials
year: 2011

abstract: Silicon is the undisputed leader for microelectronics among all the industrial materials and Si nanostructures flourish as natural candidates for tomorrow's technologies due to the rising of novel physical properties at the nanoscale. In particular, silicon nanowires (Si NWs) are emerging as a promising resource in different fields such as electronics, photovoltaic, photonics, and sensing. Despite the plethora of techniques available for the synthesis of Si NWs, metal assisted chemical etching (MACE) is today a cutting edge technology for cost effective Si nanomaterial fabrication already adopted in several research labs. During these years, MACE demonstrates interesting results for Si NW fabrication outstanding other methods. A critical study of all the main MACE routes for Si NWs is here presented, providing the comparison among all the advantages and drawbacks for different MACE approaches. All these fabrication techniques are investigated in terms of equipment, cost, complexity of the process, repeatability, also analyzing the possibility of a commercial transfer of these technologies for microelectronics, and which one may be preferred as industrial approach.
author_names: Antonio Alessio Leonardi

Maria Jose Lo Faro

Alessia Irrera
title: Silicon Nanowires Synthesis by Metal Assisted Chemical Etching: A Review
venue: Nanomaterials
year: 2021

abstract: In this work we provided a review of the study of MACE (metal assisted chemical etching) of Si with Ag, Pt, Ni and Au films and clusters. Type and shape of the metal mask play an important role in determination of morphology of the nanostructured layer. It is possible to form both wide range of porous layer and nanowires array. The basic features of the MACE with various types and shape of the metal were revealed.
author_names: O V Pyatilova

Sergey Gavrilov

Artem V Sysa

Andrey Savitskiy

Alexei S Shuliatyev

Alexander A Dudin

Alexander A Pavlov
title: Metal assisted chemical etching of silicon with different metal films and clusters: a review
venue: International Conference on Micro and Nano Electronics
year: 2016

abstract: High aspect ratio silicon micro and nanostructures are technologically relevant in several applications, such as microelectronics, microelectromechanical systems, sensors, thermoelectric materials, battery anodes, solar cells, photonic devices, and X ray optics. Microfabrication is usually achieved by dry etch with reactive ions and KOH based wet etch, metal assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) is emerging as a new etching technique that allows huge aspect ratio for feature size in the nanoscale. To date, a specialized review of MacEtch that considers both the fundamentals and X ray optics applications is missing in the literature. This review aims to provide a comprehensive summary including: (i) fundamental mechanism; (ii) basics and roles to perform uniform etching in direction perpendicular to the <100> Si substrate; (iii) several examples of X ray optics fabricated by MacEtch such as line gratings, circular gratings array, Fresnel zone plates, and other X ray lenses; (iv) materials and methods for a full fabrication of absorbing gratings and the application in X ray grating based interferometry; and (v) future perspectives of X ray optics fabrication. The review provides researchers and engineers with an extensive and updated understanding of the principles and applications of MacEtch as a new technology for X ray optics fabrication.
author_names: Lucia Romano

Marco Stampanoni
title: Microfabrication of X ray Optics by Metal Assisted Chemical Etching: A Review
venue: Micromachines
year: 2020

abstract: Abstract Silicon nanostructures exhibit promising application potentials in many fields in comparison with their bulk counterpart or other semiconductor nanostructures. Therefore, the exploiting of controllable fabrication methods of silicon nanostructures, and the exploring of further applications of silicon nanostructures gain extensive attentions. In this review, recent advances in metal assisted chemical etching of silicon, a low cost and versatile method enabling fine control over morphology feature of silicon nanostructures, are summarized. The overview concerning the applications of silicon nanostructures in the field of energy conversion and storage, and sensors are also presented.
author_names: Hee Yoon Han

Zhipeng Huang

Woo-Jin Lee
title: Metal assisted chemical etching of silicon and nanotechnology applications
year: 2014

abstract: This review outlines the developments and recent progress in metal assisted chemical etching of silicon, summarizing a variety of fundamental and innovative processes and etching methods that form a wide range of nanoscale silicon structures. The use of silicon as an anode for Li ion batteries is also reviewed, where factors such as film thickness, doping, alloying, and their response to reversible lithiation processes are summarized and discussed with respect to battery cell performance. Recent advances in improving the performance of silicon based anodes in Li ion batteries are also discussed. The use of a variety of nanostructured silicon structures formed by many different methods as Li ion battery anodes is outlined, focusing in particular on the influence of mass loading, core shell structure, conductive additives, and other parameters. The influence of porosity, dopant type, and doping level on the electrochemical response and cell performance of the silicon anodes are detailed based on recent findings. Perspectives on the future of silicon and related materials, and their compositional and structural modifications for energy storage via several electrochemical mechanisms, are also provided.
author_names: William McSweeney

Hugh Geaney

Colm O'Dwyer
title: Metal assisted chemical etching of silicon and the behavior of nanoscale silicon materials as Li ion battery anodes
venue: Nano Research
year: 2015

abstract: Metal assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) is a recently developed anisotropic wet etching method that is capable of producing high aspect ratio semiconductor nanostructures from patterned metal film. In this review article, we highlight the characteristics of MacEtch of silicon (Si) including controllability of the produced sidewall roughness, the inherent high aspect ratio, the weak crystal orientation dependence, impurity doping and solution concentration dependent porosity, as well as the applicability of MacEtch to non Si based semiconductor materials including III V compound semiconductors. Also reviewed are applications of MacEtch produced high aspect ratio Si nanostructures in photovoltaics, where the p n junction can be in the planar Si tray, core shell, or axial geometry, with nanowire, micropillar, or hole arrays serving as light trapping or carrier collection structures. The prospect of using MacEtch to improve the cost and efficiency of photovoltaic cells is discussed.
author_names: Xiuling Li
title: Metal assisted chemical etching for high aspect ratio nanostructures: A review of characteristics and applications in photovoltaics
year: 2012

abstract: Abstract Metal assisted chemical etching (MACE) is a simple, low cost and versatile method of fabricating various silicon nanostructures. Due to the etching anisotropy of monocrystalline silicon, i.e. its different crystal orientation has different number of silicon back bonds needed to be broken in the etching process, the obtained silicon nanostructures are morphology variable. It has been demonstrated that, by choosing the species or morphologies of catalyst, adjusting the etchant composition or concentration, changing the doping species and level of the silicon substrate, or introducing extra physical fields, MACE method can be used to prepare various desired silicon nanostructures. This review summarizes the most recent contributions in the fabrication of designable monocrystalline silicon nanostructure by MACE. In order to provide a relatively complete comprehension of the MACE, the fundamental principle and basic manipulation process of a conventional MACE, as well as the main influence factors on the etching effects are given; and the common applications of MACE in silicon etching are briefly reviewed. This article also presents some new developed improved MACE technologies and their potential applications in the extended field.
author_names: Meicheng Li

Yingfeng Li

Wenjian Liu

Luo Yue

Ruike Li

Younan Luo

Mwenya Trevor

Bing Jiang

Fan Bai

Pengfei Fu

Yan Zhao

Chao Shen

Joseph Michel Mbengue
title: Metal assisted chemical etching for designable monocrystalline silicon nanostructure
year: 2016

abstract: Abstract In this article, the fabrication methods of black silicon (b Si) application and performance of b Si in photovoltaics, and the theoretical modelling efforts in b Si based photovoltaic cells are reviewed. To date, the most popular fabrication methods are reactive ion etching and metal assisted chemical etching, due to their flexibility and low cost. Other methods include laser irradiation, stain etching, electrochemical etching, and Fray Farthing Chen Cambridge process. Black silicon's largest application is in photovoltaics due to its absorption properties. Currently, the highest efficiency of b Si based solar cell reported in the literature is 22.1% with an interdigitated back contact configuration. Currently, the issue of high recombination rates due to the nanostructures is being actively researched on but has yet been fully resolved. There are only a few theoretical models of b Si photovoltaics, with most focus on the optical properties. The optical performance is usually assessed based on Maxwell's equations, while the electrical properties are simulated based on semiconductor equations, including Poisson's, continuity and drift diffusion current equations. Most studies neglect the effect of temperature. Modelling of the thermal properties of silicon nanostructures is performed with the Monte Carlo method to solve the phonon radiative transport equation for the temperature distribution.
author_names: Jasman Y H Chai

Basil T Wong

Saulius Juodkazis
title: Black silicon assisted photovoltaic cells for better conversion efficiencies: a review on recent research and development efforts
year: 2020

abstract: Nowadays hybrid (inorganic organic) solar cells have become centre for attractive research for their comparatively low cost and fundamental research for prominent organic inorganic hetero junction. This review mainly aims to focus on the basic concepts of silicon nanowires (Si NWs) hybrid solar cells including different fabrication and characterization procedures and the fundamental aspects on which solar cell works. Various techniques have been reported for the synthesis of Si NWs such as CVD, Oxide assisted growth, Lithography and electro less metal assisted chemical etching. A further discussion is made on the various characterization procedures such as SEM, TEM, XRD, XPS, UV Vis, PL, FTIR, Raman and IV for both Si NWs and the hybrid solar cell. Furthermore a comparison has also been made between various solar cells with the help of a table showing different Si NWs hybrid solar cell and their efficiencies.
author_names: Rabina Bhujel

Bibhu Prasad Swain
title: Fabrication and characterization of silicon nanowires hybrid Solar cells: A Review
year: 2018