Optical properties of laterally aligned Si nanowires for transparent electronics applications

Abstract

We have investigated the optical properties of laterally aligned Si nanowire (SiNW) arrays in order to explore their potential applicability in transparent electronics. The SiNW array exhibited good optical transparency in the visible spectral range with a transmittance of similar to 90% for a NW density of similar to 20-25 per 10 mu m. In addition, polarization-dependent measurements revealed a variation in transmittance in the range of 80%-95% depending on the angle between the polarization of incident light and the NW axis. Using the SiNWs, we demonstrated that transparent transistors exhibit good optical transparency (greater than 80%) and showed typical p-type SiNW transistor characteristics.