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Playing with carbon and silicon at the nanoscale

Nature Materials volume 6, pages 479–490 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Because of its superior properties silicon carbide is one of the most promising materials for power electronics, hard- and biomaterials. In the solid phase, the electronic and optical properties are controlled by the stacking of double layers of Si and C atoms. In thin films, a change in the stacking order often requires stress, which can be achieved naturally in systems with nanometre length scale. For this reason, nanotubes, nanowires and clusters can be used as building blocks for the synthesis of novel materials. Furthermore, playing at the nanometre length scale enables the nature of the SiC bonding to be modified, which is of prime importance for atomic engineering of nanostructures. In this review, emphasis is placed on the theoretical principles associated with SiC cage-like clusters and experimental work resulting from them.

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Figure 1: Synopsis showing some selected important structures based on carbon and silicon building blocks.
Figure 2: Comparison between heterostructures (superlattices) formed by only one material with different structure or extended defects and those formed by different chemical species.
Figure 3: Starke's model for a surface reconstruction in 3C–SiC(111)(3 × 3) Si-rich phase.
Figure 4: Evidence through first-order Raman spectroscopy of the non-local order in a-SiC compared with pure C and Si amorphous networks.
Figure 5: Multiwalled SiC nanotube and several proposed models.
Figure 6: Different forms of cage-like SiC fullerenes: endofullerenes, exofullerenes and heterofullerenes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to M. Fuller and M. Kasrai of the University of Western Ontario for proofreading the manuscript.

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  1. Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée et Nanostructures, Villeurbanne, F-69622, France

    P. Mélinon, B. Masenelli, F. Tournus & A. Perez

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Mélinon, P., Masenelli, B., Tournus, F. et al. Playing with carbon and silicon at the nanoscale. Nature Mater 6, 479–490 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1914

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