The vertical and epitaxial growth of long (up to a few microns) silicon nanowires on Si(111) substrates by electron beam evaporation (EBE) (10 6 10 7 mbar) is demonstrated at temperatures between 600 and 700 °C following the vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mechanism from gold nanoparticles. The silicon atoms are provided by evaporating silicon at varying evaporation currents (IE) between 35 and 80 mA, which results in growth rates between 1 and 100 nm/min. The growth peculiarities in the interaction triangle, evaporation current (IE), growth temperature (TS) and gold layer thickness (dAu) will be reported. Kinetic and energetic contributions to the morphology of silicon nanowires will be discussed.