Thermal evaporation and solution strategies to novel nanoarchitectures of silicon carbide

Two simple methods, the thermal evaporation method and solution method, were developed to synthesize a variety of SiC nanoarchitectures. SiC nanowires, nanopyramids, and nanobones were obtained by the thermal evaporation method, while nanokelps, nanoflowers and nanocombs were achieved in the solution route. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses demonstrate that these SiC nanoarchitectures all have a face-centered cubic structure. The variety of the SiC nanoarchitectures is recognized caused by using different carbon and silicon sources with and without nucleation initiators, e.g., ZnS and Zn/SiO2 in the thermal evaporation method, and different growth manners in the solution method. The vapor–solid (VS) and vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) reaction mechanisms are proposed for the formation of these different morphologies and structures of the SiC nanoarchitectures. The study on the nanoarchitectures may be helpful in the further research towards controllable formation of nanostructures and in finding potential applications for nanodevices.