Understanding substrate-driven growth mechanism of copper silicide nanoforms and their applications

The growth mechanism of various nanoforms of copper/copper silicide on Si substrates with different orientations is reported here. The triangular, square and rectangular copper/copper silicide nanostructures are deposited on silicon substrates with (111), (100) and (110) orientations respectively, by thermal evaporation of metallic copper at different substrate temperatures. Investigations confirm that the nanostructures consist of a pure copper layer on top of a copper silicide layer. The morphology and growth behaviour studies confirmed for the first time that the formation of well-defined structures and shapes are governed by the Si substrate orientation and the surface reconstruction of the Si planes. The copper silicide nanostructures are used in field emission applications and also serve as a template for the growth of carbon nano-fibre.