Ultra high-density silicon nanowires for extremely low reflection in visible regime

Abstract

We fabricated large-area, vertically aligned silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays on Si substrates employing catalytic etching on a polystyrene nanosphere template. The density of SiNWs was as high as 1010/cm2, and the bottom radii of SiNWs ranged between 30 and 60 nm. The reflection from the SiNW layer was approximately 0.1% over the spectral range of 300–800 nm for SiNWs longer than 750 nm. Effective medium theory was applied to explain this extremely low reflection, and it was confirmed that the incident light scatters randomly inside cone-like SiNWs, which lengthens the actual traveling path of light.