Growth of the Manganese Silicide/Silicon Nanowire Heterostructures and Their Physical Properties

Metal silicide nanowires (NWs) are of great interesting materials with diverse physical properties. Among these silicides, manganese silicides nanostructures have been attracted wide attention due to their several potential applications, including microelectronics, optoelectronics, spintronics and thermoelectric devices. In this work, we exhibited the formation of pure manganese silicide and manganese silicide/silicon nanowire heterostructures through solid state reaction with line contacts between manganese pads and silicon NWs. The growth process, structure and composition analysis of manganese silicide NWs have been investigated by in-situ ultrahigh vacuum transmission electron microscopy (UHV-TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), respectively. The growth rates and the formation of various manganese silicide phases under thermal effect were systematically studied. We also characterized the dynamic diffusion of manganese atoms in the growth process and discussed the formation mechanism. Furthermore, we have investigated the electrical transport properties and fabricated field effect transistors (FETs) of the manganese silicide/silicon/manganese silicide nanowire heterostructures based devices. In addition to fundamental science, the significance of the study will be helpful for future processing techniques in nanotechnology and related applications.