A systematic method to control the porosity of silicon nanowires is presented. This method is based on metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) and takes advantage of an HF/H2O2 etching solution and a silver catalyst in the form of a thin patterned film deposited on a doped silicon wafer. It is found that the porosity of the etched nanowires can be controlled by the doping level of the wafer. For low doping concentrations, the wires are primarily crystalline and surrounded by only a very thin layer of porous silicon (pSi) layer, while for highly doped silicon, they are porous in their entire volume. We performed a series of controlled experiments to conclude that there exists a well-defined critical doping concentration separating the crystalline and porous regimes. Furthermore, transmission electron microscopy investigations showed that the pSi has also a crystalline morphology on a length scale smaller than the pore size, determined from positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy to be mesoscopic. Based on the experimental evidence, we devise a theoretical model of the pSi formation during MACE and apply it for better control of the nanowire morphology.

We present a detailed study of the thermal evolution of H ion-induced vacancy related complexes and voids in bulk GaN implanted under ion-cut conditions. By using transmission electron microscopy, we found that the damage band in as-implanted GaN is decorated with a high density of nanobubbles of ϳ1 -2 nm in diameter. Variable energy Doppler broadening spectroscopy showed that this band contains vacancy clusters and voids. In addition to vacancy clusters, the presence of V Ga , V Ga -H 2 , and V Ga V N complexes was evidenced by pulsed low-energy positron lifetime spectroscopy. Subtle changes upon annealing in these vacancy complexes were also investigated. As a general trend, a growth in open-volume defects is detected in parallel to an increase in both size and density of nanobubbles. The observed vacancy complexes appear to be stable during annealing. However, for temperatures above 450°C, unusually large lifetimes were measured. These lifetimes are attributed to the formation of positronium in GaN. Since the formation of positronium is not possible in a dense semiconductor, our finding demonstrates the presence of sufficiently large open-volume defects in this temperature range. Based on the Tao-Eldrup model, the average lattice opening during thermal annealing was quantified. We found that a void diameter of 0.4 nm is induced by annealing at 600°C. The role of these complexes in the subsurface microcracking is discussed.

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A long sought after target in materials research has been the synthesis of high quality, optically transparent, electrically conductive thin films that simultaneously provide large surface area and nanocrystalline mesoporosity. , Geoff Ozin and co‐workers report a dye‐anchored transparent, well‐ordered mesoporous antimony‐doped tin oxide film that functions as the working electrode in an electrochemiluminescent cell, suggesting opportunities for use in a range of optoelectronic applications.