title: Burning match oxidation process of silicon nanowires screened at the atomic scale.
abstract: Silicon oxide nanowires hold great promise for functional nanoscale electronics. Here, we investigate the oxidation of straight, massively parallel, metallic Si nanowires. We show that the oxidation process starts at the Si NW terminations and develops like a burning match. While the spectroscopic signatures on the virgin, metallic part, are unaltered we identify four new oxidation states on the oxidized part, which show a gap opening, thus revealing the formation of a transverse internal nanojunction.
authors.affiliation: CNR-ISM, via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Roma, Italy. paola.depadova@ism.cnr.it
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Padova
authors.forename: Christel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leandri
authors.forename: Sebastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vizzini
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Quaresima
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Perfetti
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Olivieri
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Oughaddou
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Aufray
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Le Lay