Silicon Nanowire: From Fabrication to Its Application

Silicon (Si) is one of the most studied semiconductor materials which lies in the heart of microelectronic industry but being indirect bandgap material, it’s not very well appreciated for optoelectronic applications. In contrast to this Si nanowires (SiNWs), being one dimensional structure exhibit direct band gap material properties like visible photoluminescence. SiNWs also provides one of the simplest systems but still complex to study the microscopic phenomenon happening at nanoscale like quantum confinement effect and electron–phonon interaction (Fano effect). SiNWs can be fabricated by various methods including chemical vapor deposition, electrochemical dissolution etc. Among the various methods “Metal Induced Etching (MIE)” is one of simplest and cost-effective method to fabricate SiNWs at large scale. This book chapter will be focused on fabrication mechanism of SiNWs by MIE, its optoelectronic properties, phonon and electron confinement and its application in field emission.