Gas phase grown silicon germanium nanocrystals

We report on the gas phase synthesis of highly crystalline and homogeneously alloyed Si1−xGex nanocrystals in continuous and pulsed plasmas. Agglomerated nanocrystals have been produced with remarkable control over their composition by altering the precursor GeH4 gas flow in a continuous plasma. We specially highlight that in the pulsed plasma mode, we obtain quantum-sized free standing alloy nanocrystals with a mean size of 7.3 nm. The presence of Si1−xGex alloy particles is confirmed with multiple techniques, i.e. Raman spectroscopy, XRD (Xray diffraction) and HRTEM (high resolution transmission electron microscopy) studies, with each of these methods consistently yielding the same composition. The nanocrystals synthesized here have potential applications in band-gap engineering for multijunction solar cells.