Elaboration and characterization of a-SiC nanowires for CO2 sensor

This work presents the formation and characterization of amorphous silicon carbide nanowires (ASCNW) for an application as CO2 gas sensor. The preparation of the ASCNW structure required two stages, the first one consisted on the formation of Si nanowires on p-type silicon (p-Si) with low resistivity, by chemical etching assisted by a metal (Ag), where the second concerned the deposition of hydrogenated amorphous SiC thin films of on silicon nanowires (SNW), by RF magnetron sputtering, with varied thicknesses ranging between 2 and 60 nm. To study the structural and optical properties of ASCNW, different characterization techniques were used, such as scanning electron microscope (SEM) and photoluminescence (PL). The results show the formation of ASCNW with a high intensity of photoluminescence. In order to investigate the large specific surface area and great stability, the ASCNW-based structures were used as a detection device for gases, such as CO2. In light of the obtained results, it was found that the structure of the ASCNW presented an improved and extremely stable detection performance compared to previous results and could be promising for the construction of an efficient gas sensor device.