Ag-ion implantation of silicon

Porous materials have attracted remarkable concerns and found tremendous importance widespread in both fundamental research and industrial applications. Such materials could be widely used for variety applications as... [ view full abstract ]

Porous materials have attracted remarkable concerns and found tremendous importance widespread in both fundamental research and industrial applications. Such materials could be widely used for variety applications as absorbents, lightings, catalysts, solar cell and for biological molecular filtration and isolation. One known fabrication method for porous semiconductor nanostructures preparation is ion implantation. For example, various accelerated ions such as Ge⁺, Bi⁺ and Sn⁺ were successfully used for creation of porous germanium layers. Also, ion implantation is a well-established and all over the world accessible technique, being mainly used for semiconductor microelectronic device fabrication. In same time there are not enough data on formation of porous silicon (PSi) by ion implantation. At present PSi structures could be created by electrochemical etching and chemical stain etching only. Moreover, there is a new scientific and technological task to construct a composition PSi layers containing noble metal nanoparticles. Silver nanoparticles are the subject of specific increasing interests due to their strongest plasmon resonance in the visible spectrum. If embedded in a semiconductor, metal nanoparticles could enhance light absorption in semiconductors due to the strong plasmonic near-field coupling. It is suggested by our experiments that using low-energy high-dose implantation with Ag⁺ ions of silicon wafers then thin PSi layers with silver nanoparticles could be synthesized as it is illustrated in Figureы by electron and atomic-force microscopy (AFM). A potential application of PSi with silver nanoparticle formed by ion implantation is discussing in the frame of surface enhanced Raman scattering - SERS substrate constriction. It was observed that intensity of SERS spectra for Methyl Orange (MO) organic molecules deposited on PSi with silver nanoparticles is higher in several times than for MO in solution. These results are demonstrating a perspective for using a new SERS-substrate as chemical and biological sensors. Thus, a main result of the work is experimental demonstration of a special SERS-substrate with silver nanoparticles, which created by a novel technological approach based on low-energy high-doses ion implantation.

This work was supported by grant of the Russian Scientific Foundation No. 17-12-01176.