We were drawn to Sarah Eichfeld's research images from the Penn State 2009 MVC competion. We wrote her and asked if she would be interested in sending over some additional photos to showcase more of her research with Silicon Nanowires. Eichfeld uses images to look through hundreds of results from her research. She has an eye for manipulating the colors and contrast in the images to help draw out the scientific details of each sample. This process helps to unlock the enigmatic nature of her work.

Eichfeld's work focused on growing single crystal silicon nanowires that were oriented in a particular growth direction for use in photovoltaic applications. With a growing need for renewable energy sources, Eichfeld was motivated to find a way to use nanotechnology to provide high efficiency solar cells at a lower cost. "Since solar power is a clean renewable energy source, the goal is to make it affordable to the average person while also trying to improve efficiency." said Dr. Eichfeld.

The practical application of these beautiful images is to help understand the results of the reactions. The nanowire forest image was significant in that it showed the Au catalyst was diffusing down the nanowire during cool down, which could actually be detrimental to a solar device. Dr. Eichfeld explains, "So from this image we were able to adjust our growth to try and prevent that from happening. The images of the Au catalyst on patterned substrates were also important because it helped us understand how our patterning process lead to the catalyst breaking up during growth initiation and also how our nanowires were nucleating."

Enjoy this gallery of nanotechnology and silicon nanowire research thank you to Dr. Sarah Eichfeld for allowing us to host these photos.