Molecular Template Assisted Growth of Ultrathin Silicon Carbide Nanowires with Strong Green Light Emission and Excellent Field-Emission Properties

A novel molecule template assisted chemical co-reduction method has been successfully developed for the controlled synthesis of ultrathin beta-SiC single-crystalline nanowires on a large scale. The ultrathin beta-SiC single-crystalline nanowires are about 8 nm in diameter and 200-800 nm in length. The resulting thin beta-SiC single-crystalline nanowire is new in the family of beta-SiC one-dimensional (ID) nanostructures. A synergistic action of pi-stacking and steric hindrance result from the 1,10-phenanthroline molecule template are proposed to explain the growth mechanism of the ultrathin beta-SiC single-crystalline nanowires based on the experimental observation. Importantly, such ultrathin beta-SiC nanowire has shown a strong structure-induced enhancement of photoluminescence properties and has exhibited a very strong green light emission, which can be seen by naked eye. Furthermore, the unique beta-sic ultrathin nanowire structure exhibits a low turn-on field (3.57 V mu m(-1)) and a large field-emission current density (20 mA cm(-2)). These results suggest that the ultrathin beta-SiC nanowires can be expected to find promising applications as field emitters and photoelectronic devices.