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Nucleation and Initial Growth in Ultrafast Electrochemical Fabrication of P-Type Macroporous Silicon

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Abstract

The nucleation process is an important factor affecting the growth rate of porous silicon. The initial growth process of ultrafast electrochemical fabrication of p-type macropores (High current density: 80 mA cm−2,150 mA cm−2,300 mA cm−2, Ultrafast etching rate: from 16 to 30 μm min−1) and clarified the formation steps of p-type porous silicon has been studied. The initial nucleation process of macropores containing three growth stages was systematically investigated. The results show that the uniform dissolution process of the nucleating layer is relatively slow during p-type porous silicon etching and a translucent nucleation layer always exists on the upper surface through the whole process of nucleation. It is very important for understanding the nucleation phase of porous silicon.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully thank the Institute of Intelligent Flexible Mechatronics of Jiangsu University, and the Test Center of Jiangsu University for using F7800 for electron microscopy.

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (92163216), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20180098), Open Research Fund of National Laboratory of Solid-State Microstructures (M33042).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Intelligent Flexible Mechatronics, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Daohan Ge, Guangfu Zhen, Jiakang Shi & Liqiang Zhang

  2. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics, Nan**g University, Nan**g, 210093, People’s Republic of China

    Daohan Ge & Liqiang Zhang

  3. Insititute of New Materials, School of Mateirals Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Zhibao Li

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  1. Daohan Ge
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Contributions

Guangfu Zhen and Jiakang Shi did the experiment under the direction of Daohan Ge and Liqiang Zhang; Guangfu Zhen analyzed the date and prepared the manuscript under the direction of Zhibao Li and Liqiang Zhang. Daohan Ge and Liqiang Zhang discussed the results and Liqiang Zhang and Daohan Ge revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the general discussion.

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Correspondence to Daohan Ge, Zhibao Li or Liqiang Zhang.

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Ge, D., Zhen, G., Shi, J. et al. Nucleation and Initial Growth in Ultrafast Electrochemical Fabrication of P-Type Macroporous Silicon. Silicon 14, 12393–12401 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-022-01870-w

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