SYNTHESES OF NANOSTRUCTURE BUNDLES BASED ON SEMICONDUCTING METAL SILICIDES

A variety of nanostructure bundles and arrays based on semiconducting metal silicides have been synthesized using abundant and non-toxic starting materials. Three types of fabrication techniques of the nanostructure bundles or arrays, including direct growth, template synthesis using natural nanostructured materials and template synthesis using artificially fabricated nanostructured materials are demonstrated. CrSi2 nanowire bundles were directly grown by the exposure of Si substrates to CrCl2 vapor at atmospheric pressure. A hexagonal MoSi2 nanosheet, Mg2Si/MgO composite nanowire and Mg2Si nanowire bundles and MnSi1.7 nanowire array were synthesized using a MoS2 layered material, a SiOx nanofiber bundle, a Si nanowire array, and a Si nanowire array as the templates, respectively. Additionally, the fabrication phenomenon and structural properties of the nanostructured semiconducting metal silicides were investigated. These reactions provided the low-cost and controllable synthetic techniques to synthesize large scale and one-dimensional semiconducting metal silicides for thermoelectric applications.