Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Herein we demonstrate a novel electroless etching synthesis of monolithic, single-crystalline, mesoporous silicon nanowire arrays with a high surface area and luminescent properties consistent with conventional porous silicon materials. The photoluminescence of these nanowires suggest they are composed of crystalline silicon with small enough dimensions such that these arrays may be useful as photocatalytic substrates or active components of nanoscale optoelectronic devices. A better understanding of this electroless route to mesoporous silicon could lead to facile and general syntheses of different narrow bandgap semiconductor nanostructures for various applications.