Solvent Vapor Growth of Axial Heterostructure Nanowires with Multiple Alternating Segments of Silicon and Germanium

Herein, we report the formation of multisegment Si-Ge axial heterostructure nanowires in a wet chemical synthetic approach. These nanowires are grown by the liquid injection of the respective silicon and germanium precursors into the vapor phase of an organic solvent in which a tin-coated stainless steel substrate is placed. The Si-Ge transition is obtained by sequential injection with the more difficult Ge-Si transition enabled by inclusion of a quench sequence in the reaction. This approach allows for alternating between pure Si and pure Ge segments along the entire nanowire length with good control of the respective segment dimensions. The multisegment heterostructure nanowires presented are Ge-Si, Si-Ge-Si, Ge-Si-Ge, Si-Ge-Si-Ge, and Si-Ge-Si-Ge-Si-Ge. The interfacial abruptness of the Ge to Si interface is also determined through the use of aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy.