Fabrication of silicon carbide nanowires/carbon nanotubes heterojunction arrays by high-flux Si ion implantation.

An array of silicon carbide nanowire (SiCNW)-carbon nanotube (CNT) heterojunctions was fabricated by high-flux Si ion implantation into a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) array with a metal vapor vacuum arc (MEVVA) ion source. Under Si irradiation, the top part of a CNT array was gradually transformed into an amorphous nanowire array with increasing Si dose while the bottom part still remained a CNT structure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis shows that the SiC compound was produced in the nanowire part even at the lower Si dose of 5 × 10(16) ions cm(-2), and the SiC amount increased with increasing the Si dose. Therefore, the fabrication of a SiCNW-CNT heterojunction array with the MEVVA technique has been successfully demonstrated. The corresponding formation mechanism of SiCNWs was proposed.