Direct quantification of gold along a single Si nanowire
Résumé
The presence of gold on the sidewall of a tapered, single silicon nanowire is directly quantified from core-level nanospectra using energy- filtered photoelectron emission microscopy. The uniform island-type partial coverage of gold determined as 0.42 +/- 0.06 (∼1.8 ML) is in quantitative agreement with the diameter reduction of the gold catalyst observed by scanning electron microscopy and is confirmed by a splitting of the photothresholds collected from the sidewall, from which characteristic local work functions are extracted using a model of the full secondary electron distributions.