Synthesis and structural characterization of germanium nanowires from glancing angle deposition

Ge nanowires were fabricated on the Si substrates by the glancing angle deposition technique. Effects of the flux angle, substrate temperature and deposition rate on the synthesis of Ge nanowires were examined. We observed that the porosity of the film increased as the flux angle became more oblique. Our Raman results showed that samples deposited with a higher substrate temperature and at a flux angle of 87° led to an improvement in the crystallinity of the films. It is possible to obtain isolated, single-crystalline Ge nanowires using this technique with a flux angle of 87°, at a substrate temperature of 330 °C and a deposition rate of 0.2 A s−1. Rapid thermal annealing of such nanowires at 600 °C resulted in the formation of amorphous nanoclusters.