title: In situ size sorting in CVD synthesis of Si microspheres.
abstract: Silicon microspheres produced in gas-phase by hot-wall CVD offer unique quality in terms of sphericity, surface smoothness, and size. However, the spheres produced are polydisperse in size, which typically range from 0.5 μm to 5 μm. In this work we show through experiments and calculations that thermophoretic forces arising from strong temperature gradients inside the reactor volume effectively sort the particles in size along the reactor. These temperature gradients are shown to be produced by a convective gas flow. The results prove that it is possible to select the particle size by collecting them in a particular reactor region, opening new possibilities towards the production by CVD of size-controlled high-quality silicon microspheres.
authors.affiliation: Grup de recerca en Micro i Nanotecnologies, Departament d'Enginyeria Electrònica, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, c/Jordi Girona Pascual 1-3, Barcelona 08034, Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garín
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Tecnología Química (CSIC - UPV), Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Av. Tarongers s/n 46022, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fenollosa
authors.affiliation: Grup de recerca en Micro i Nanotecnologies, Departament d'Enginyeria Electrònica, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, c/Jordi Girona Pascual 1-3, Barcelona 08034, Spain.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kowalski