ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe readers effort to make and scale up the production of inorganic nanowires using plasma-based approaches. They have shown that mixing silane and nitrogen diluted in hydrogen results in bulk nucleation and growth of silicon nitride nanowires from gallium melt at reasonable temperatures less than 550C. Direct plasma synthesis is a process where nanowires (NWs) are grown by exposing a substrate to gaseous plasma. The plasma flight-through method describes various plasma processes that can reshape or synthesize new NWs from particles, solid–vapor–solid, and solid–liquid–vapour–solid growth mechanisms. Particles passing through a gaseous plasma, typically in a free fall, can either melt or vaporize and then interact with plasma species to form new types of NWs. Bulk production of NWs was performed with a newly designed reactor that efficiently generates microwave plasma inside quartz tube. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition has been used to deposit nanostructures including NWs from a gaseous precursor to a solid product.
