Regenerative electroless etching (ReEtching) is an electroless etching process that can produce nanostructured semiconducting powders. ReEtching utilizes injection of H2O2 into a solution of V2O5 dissolved in HF(aq). H2O2 regenerates oxovanadium ions with V in a +5 oxidation state from V(IV). When pure Si powder is used as the substrate, the V(V) species initiates self-limiting etching of ~4 nm mesopores to produce visibly photoluminescent porous Si (por-Si). Injection of H2O2 facilitates the optimization of the yield of por-Si by controlling the rate of this highly exothermic reaction with the injection rate. The extent of reaction is controlled by limiting the amount of H2O2 injected. In the work presented here, we apply ReEtching to a new substrate, an AlSi alloy that is 65.7 wt% Al and 34.3 wt% Si. ReEtching is performed on the alloy directly or after varying amounts of Al have been removed by dissolution in HCl(aq). The resulting porous material is characterized by N2 adsorption porosimetry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Dissolution of Al out of the alloy by HCl(aq) produces a non-luminescent porous powder. ReEtching of this material as well as the original AlSi powder creates a mesoporous material that exhibits photoluminescence that is considerably red shifted compared to mesoporous Si produced by ReEtching of pure Si powder.

Regenerative electroless etching (ReEtching) of Al66Si34 alloy to form porous silicon

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.