Plasma Synthesis of Silicon Nanoparticles: From Molecules to Clusters and Nanoparticle Growth

Plasma nanotechnology is widely used for nanoscale etching, dopant implantation and thin-film deposition for state-of-the-art semiconductor devices. Such a plasma nanotechnology has another interesting aspect of synthesizing nanoparticles, in a controlled manner of atomic composition, structure and those size. Here, we present the polymerization and growth of silicon nanoparticles from a molecular level to 10 nm-particles in hydrogen diluted silane plasmas. The polymerization and growth are experimentally studied using various plasma diagnostic tools. The results indicate that nanoparticles are rapidly formed via gas-phase reactions in a low-density plasma comprising high-energy electrons. The growth kinetics and the modification of plasma properties are discussed in terms of gas-phase reactions, charging and coagulation of nanoparticles.