OF

PHYSICS 101

SILICON NANO DEVICES

Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor of

Technology
(Integrated)
In Mechanical Engineering

SUBMITTED BY:- GUIDED BY:-

Name NIKHIL LADHA

Ms. NEETI WALIA Regd. No- 11003993
Roll no.-RE4001A23
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I take this opportunity to present my votes of thanks to all those

guidepost who really acted as lightening pillars to enlighten our
way throughout this project that has led to successful and
satisfactory completion of this study.
We are really grateful to our teacher Ms. NEETI WALIA for
providing us with an opportunity to undertake this project in this
university and providing us with all the facilities. We are highly
thankful to her for her active support, valuable time and advice,
whole-hearted guidance, sincere cooperation and pains-taking
involvement during the study and in completing the assignment of
preparing the said project within the time stipulated.
Lastly, We are thankful to all those, particularly the various
friends , who have been instrumental in creating proper, healthy
and conductive environment and including new and fresh
innovative ideas for us during the project, their help, it would have
been extremely difficult for us to prepare the project in a time
bound framework.

Name- Nikhil Ladha

Regd.No- 11003993
Rollno. - RE4001A23
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Introduction to nanotechnology
 Silicon Nanodevices:-
 Silicon Nanotubes
--definition, applications
 Silicon Nanowires
--definition, uses
 Silicon Solar Cells
--definition, nanowire based solar cells
 Conclusion
 References
 AN INTRODUCTION TO NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology is the study of the controlling of matter on an atomic and molecular scale.
Generally nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nanometer in at least
one dimension, and involves developing materials or devices within that size.

Nanotechnology is very diverse, ranging from extensions of conventional device physics to

completely new approaches based upon molecular self-assembly, from developing new
materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to investigating whether we can directly control
matter on the atomic scale.

There has been much debate on the future implications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology
may be able to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such
as in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. On the other hand,
nanotechnology raises many of the same issues as with any introduction of new technology,
including concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials and their
potential effects on global economics, as well as speculation about various doomsday
scenarios. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on
whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted. Nanoscale materials are
sometimes used in solar cells which combats the cost of traditional Silicon solar cells.
Nanostructures are made up of minute particles known as the building blocks or may be
nanowires. Nanostructures may be of the type shown in the following figure.
Several research and experiments are carried out on the applications of nanotechnology. This
technology play a very vital role in the field of science and industrial development. Scientists
carry these activities on nano chips. Such experiments require large amount of heat and the
conditions are to be set accordingly. The schematic of one such experiment may be shown as
follows:-
 SILICON NANODEVICES

Silicon nanodevices are the basic applications of nanotechnology. These devices are of very
much importance in the field of science and technology in the present era. The silicon
nanodevices are basically designed for several purposes like it plays a vital role in
development in the field of electronics. Some of the silicon nanodevices have been discussed
in this term paper. Silicon is the 14th element in the periodic table and the second element
after carbon which can practice the property of catenation. This property of Silicon helps it to
form long chain compounds thereby making several devices. Silicon act as a major part in the
applications of nanotechnology. Many devices are developed based on silicon nanotubes,
silicon nanowires etc. The devices based on these building blocks are of very much
importance in the technological development of a country. Silicon solar cells based on silicon
nanowires are quite effective in trapping the solar energy and utilising it for proper uses.
Scientists and Engineers carry out experiments based on nanotechnology and at the same time
new developments are being made in this field. The advancement in the development of
silicon nanodevices demands large amount of labour. The medicinal applications of silicon
nanotechnology may be shown as follows:-
 SILICON NANOTUBES

These are nanoparticles which create a tube-like structure from silicon atoms. The nanotubes'
discovery has many significant implications for electronics development, as silicon is already
a vastly important material in the semiconductor industry. Only recently has it been possible
to prepare these nanotubes which are similar to carbon nanotubes. Nano-materials are
complex, and understanding how the behaviour of silicon materials differs from their carbon-
based cousins is still under research. While silicon nanotubes are still in the early stages of
their development, scientists and engineers have already begun to consider the possible uses
for the new material.
Silicon nanotubes have been considered for use in electronics, because it appears that silicon
nano-materials may behave like a metal fuel, since the structure can accommodate molecules
of hydrogen so it might resemble coal without carbon dioxide. A silicon nanotube charged
with hydrogen delivers energy and in the process leaves residual water, ethanol, silicon and
sand. However, as hydrogen production requires considerable energy, this is only a proposed
method of storing energy, not producing it. Single walled hexagonal silicon nanotubes may be
of the following type:-

Using first-principles density functional calculations, we show that hexagonal metallic silicon
nanotubes can be stabilized by doping with 3d transition metal atoms. Finite nanotubes doped
with Fe and Mn have high local magnetic moments, whereas Co-doped nanotubes have low
values and Ni-doped nanotubes are mostly nonmagnetic. The infinite Si24Fe4 nanotube is
found to be ferromagnetic with nearly the same local magnetic moment on each Fe atom as in
bulk iron. Mn-doped nanotubes are antiferromagnetic, but a ferrromagnetic state lies only
0.03 eV higher in energy with a gap in the majority spin bands near the Fermi energy. These
materials are interesting for silicon-based spintronic devices and other nanoscale magnetic
applications.
Another Type Of Nanotube Can Be Shown As:-

A simple chemical process employed by a Cornell University and DuPont research team may
pave the way to thinner, lighter and more flexible transistors and solar cells. The long term
goal of the project is to use nanotubes to create an economical electronics material that is just
as good as silicon.

When silicon nanotubes are grown in a lab, some of them are semiconducting and others are
metallic. The difficulty of separating the two types of nanotubes has made commercially
viable semiconducting nanotube material a costly commodity. Scientists are now using a
relatively simple chemical process called ‘cyloaddition’ to produce cheaper semiconducting
silicon nanotubes.

Cyloaddition uses fluorine-based molecules to either attack or convert the metal nanotubes
without harming the semiconducting tubes. The procedure is inexpensive and prepares the
silicon nanotubes for suspension in semiconducting ink for electronic printing purposes.

Although the work is still in the early stages, researchers believe that the breakthrough may
eventually lead to nanotube use in a variety of devices including novel organic photovoltaic
structures.
The most exciting aspect of this research is the flexibility and thinness of nanotube
semiconducting material. The team has said that the current material is 100 times more
mobile than silicon, which should allow for some extremely creative three-dimensional
photovoltaic structures in the future.

Silicon nanotubes are also used for the flow of charges in a silicon semiconductor. These
tubes are set between the two electrodes and the electrons are allowed to flow freely through
them. Holes are the positive charges. Each time an electron leaves its place, a hole is created.
The semiconductor is electrically neutral and the silicon nanotubes play an important role in
the manufacturing of these devices. The rough image of the interior of a semiconductor with
silicon nanotubes can be shown as:-

Thus silicon nanotubes are used in developing many things and hence are very much
useful. Many developments have been made based on these tubes and many more are
still to be made.
 SILICON NANOWIRES

Silicon nanowires can be prepared with single-crystal structures, diameters as small as several
nanometers and controllable hole and electron doping, and thus represent powerful building
blocks for nanoelectronic devices such as field effect transistors. To explore the potential
limits of silicon nanowire transistors, we have examined the influence of source-drain contact
thermal annealing and surface passivation on key transistor properties. The comparison of
these results and other key parameters with state-of-the-art planar silicon devices shows
substantial advantages for silicon nanowires. The nanowires may be rightly considered as
building blocks for future nanoelectronics.

Functional Nanoscale Electronic Devices Assembled Using Silicon Nanowire Building

Blocks:-

Because semiconductor nanowires can transport electrons and holes, they could function as
building blocks for nanoscale electronics assembled without the need for complex and costly
fabrication facilities. Boron- and phosphorous-doped silicon nanowires were used as building
blocks to assemble three types of semiconductor nanodevices. Passive diode structures
consisting of crossed p- and n-type nanowires exhibit rectifying transport similar to planar p-n
junctions. Active bipolar transistors, consisting of heavily and lightly n-doped nanowires
crossing a common p-type wire base, exhibit common base and emitter current gains as large
as 0.94 and 16, respectively. In addition, p- and n-type nanowires have been used to assemble
complementary inverter-like structures. The facile assembly of key electronic device elements
from well-defined nanoscale building blocks may represent a step toward a "bottom-up"
paradigm for electronics manufacturing.

Scientists believe to have made a break through discovery that could one day allow us to
charge or power electrical devices such as cell phones, by converting body heat to electricity.
A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s , Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have been working
with silicon nanowire-based converters and recently announced that they may have found a
way to use to increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100.Using a process called
electroless etching the scientist are able synthesize silicon nanowires in an aqueous solution
on the surfaces of wafers. The technique involves the galvanic displacement of silicon
through the reduction of silver ions on a wafer’s surface the team explain in their paper.

This technique of creating the nanowires results in vertically aligned wires that feature a
rougher surface than normal nanowires. It is believed that the rough surface of the nanowires
is to account for the high thermoelectric efficiency.

Silicon nanowire directional couplers can be

fabricated on a much smaller scale than their
conventional counterparts, which are made with glass
optical fibres or with waveguides based on
semiconductors, silica or lithium niobate.
Conventional directional couplers typically have
coupling lengths of hundreds of microns or even
millimetres, but the coupling length of a silicon
nanowire coupler may be 10 µm or less.

The silicon nanowire directional coupler may be

shown as per the given figure.

SILICON SOLAR CELLS

The fabrication of silicon nanowire-based solar cells on silicon wafers and on multicrystalline
silicon thin films on glass is described. The nanowires show a strong broadband optical
absorption, which makes them an interesting candidate to serve as an absorber in solar cells.
The operation of a solar cell is demonstrated with n-doped nanowires grown on a p-doped
silicon wafer. The quest to builder a better, cheaper solar cell continues on, as researchers at
the New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed a new type of solar cell that can be
printed or painted onto flexible plastic sheets. Unlike traditional silicon cells, the print-on
cells are composed of silicon nanotubes and nanowires, which results in substantially cheaper
manufacturing costs and greater efficiency, since apparently carbon nanotubes are terrific
conductors. The scientists are quite excited for their research in these field.

Silicon Nanowires Boost Solar Cells:-

Solar cells made from silicon nanowires could give "classic" silicon-based photovoltaic or
other types of solid-state solar cells a run for their money, say researchers at the City
University of Hong Kong. Several research makers have succeeded in producing silicon
nanowire array photoelectrochemical solar cells that show more efficient light absorption per
unit device and thus higher light conversion efficiency at a lower cost than conventional
silicon-based cells. The way that the new arrays were prepared also means they could easily
be scaled up for large-area applications.
The majority of solar photovoltaic modules sold are silicon-based, but in recent years
increased demand for silicon solar cells has inflated the price of raw silicon materials. The
shortage of high-quality silicon has lead to research to find novel ways to design photovoltaic
cells using inexpensive, low-quality silicon alternatives. Photovoltaic cells based on silicon
nanowire arrays have emerged as a promising candidate for solar energy harvesting. Silicon
nanowire solar cells consist of arrays of radial p-n junction nanowires where the darker outer
shell is composed of n-type silicon, to which the electron acceptor phosphorous has been
added, and the lighter inner core from p-type silicon, to which the electron donor boron has
been added. Each individual nanowire in the array has a p-n junction and acts as a tiny
photovoltaic cell.
Silicon solar cells based on nanowires have much shorter p-n junctions that thin film solar
cells. In the nanowire structure, photo-excited electrons and holes (carriers) travel very short
distances before being collected by the electrodes. This results in a higher carrier-collection
efficiency in the core-shell nanowire structure, and this advantage leads to a higher tolerance
for material defects and allows the use of a lower-quality silicon. The core-shell nanowire
structure addresses the carrier-collection issue, one of the key factors that determine the
overall efficiency of a solar cell. However, the efficiency of photon capture in the nanowire
structures, another very important factor, has not yet been determined.
 CONCLUSION

Nanotechnology allows us to alter the fundamental properties of matter, giving rise to novel
materials with desirable attributes and many new applications. This silicon-based
nanotechnology is compatible with and can easily be integrated into conventional silicon
microtechnology. Thus these devices are very useful for the betterment in the field of
technology.
 REFERENCES

www.google.com Universal
search website
www.wikipedia.com Educational
search website
www.scienceworld.com Science search
website
Nanotechnology Book by LYNN E.
FOSTER