Project description:The widespread use of Au as a seed particle in the fabrication of semiconductor nanowires presents a fundamental limitation to the potential incorporation of such nanostructures into electronic devices. Although several other growth techniques have been demonstrated, the use of alternative seed particle metals remains an underexplored but potentially very promising way to influence the properties of the resulting nanowires while simultaneously avoiding gold. In this Letter, we demonstrate the use of Sn as a seed particle metal for GaAs nanowires grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. We show that vertically aligned and stacking defect-free GaAs nanowires can be grown with very high yield. The resulting nanowires exhibit Esaki diode behavior, attributed to very high n-doping of the nanowire core with Sn, and simultaneous C-doping of the radial overgrowth. These results demonstrate that the use of alternative seed particle metals is a potentially important area to explore for developing nanowire materials with controlled material properties.
Project description:Strain engineering provides an effective way of tailoring the electronic and optoelectronic properties of semiconductor nanomaterials and nanodevices, giving rise to novel functionalities. Here, we present direct experimental evidence of strain-induced modifications of hole mobility in individual gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowires, using in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The conductivity of the nanowires varied with applied uniaxial tensile stress, showing an initial decrease of ∼5-20% up to a stress of 1-2 GPa, subsequently increasing up to the elastic limit of the nanowires. This is attributed to a hole mobility variation due to changes in the valence band structure caused by stress and strain. The corresponding lattice strain in the nanowires was quantified by in situ four dimensional scanning TEM and showed a complex spatial distribution at all stress levels. Meanwhile, a significant red shift of the band gap induced by the stress and strain was unveiled by monochromated electron energy loss spectroscopy.
Project description:Core/shell nanowire (NW) heterostructures based on III-V semiconductors and related alloys are attractive for optoelectronic and photonic applications owing to the ability to modify their electronic structure via bandgap and strain engineering. Post-growth thermal annealing of such NWs is often involved during device fabrication and can also be used to improve their optical and transport properties. However, effects of such annealing on alloy disorder and strain in core/shell NWs are not fully understood. In this work we investigate these effects in novel core/shell/shell GaAs/GaNAs/GaAs NWs grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (111) Si substrates. By employing polarization-resolved photoluminescence measurements, we show that annealing (i) improves overall alloy uniformity due to suppressed long-range fluctuations in the N composition; (ii) reduces local strain within N clusters acting as quantum dot emitters; and (iii) leads to partial relaxation of the global strain caused by the lattice mismatch between GaNAs and GaAs. Our results, therefore, underline applicability of such treatment for improving optical quality of NWs from highly-mismatched alloys. They also call for caution when using ex-situ annealing in strain-engineered NW heterostructures.
Project description:Strain engineering of nanowires (NWs) has been recognized as a powerful strategy for tuning the optical and electronic properties of nanoscale semiconductors. Therefore, the characterization of the strains with nanometer-scale spatial resolution is of great importance for various promising applications. In the present work, we synthesized single-crystalline zinc blende phase GaP and GaAs NWs using the chemical vapor transport method and visualized their bending strains (up to 3%) with high precision using the nanobeam electron diffraction technique. The strain mapping at all crystallographic axes revealed that (i) maximum strain exists along the growth direction ([111]) with the tensile and compressive strains at the outer and inner parts, respectively; (ii) the opposite strains appeared along the perpendicular direction ([2̅11]); and (iii) the tensile strain was larger than the coexisting compressive strain at all axes. The Raman spectrum collected for individual bent NWs showed the peak broadening and red shift of the transverse optical modes that were well-correlated with the strain maps. These results are consistent with the larger mechanical modulus of GaP than that of GaAs. Our work provides new insight into the bending strain of III-V semiconductors, which is of paramount importance in the performance of flexible or bendable electronics.
Project description:The green synthesis of nanowired photocatalyst composed of carbon quantum dots-titanium hybrid-semiconductors, CQDs/TiO2, are reported. Where graphite-based CQDs with a size less than 5?nm are directly synthesized in pure water electrolyte by a one-step electrochemistry approach and subsequently electrodeposited onto as-prepared TiO2 nanowires through a voltage-driven reduction process. Electron paramagnetic resonance studies show that the CQDs can generate singlet oxygen and/or oxygen radicals to decompose the kinetic H2O2 intermediate species upon UV light illumination. With the effect of peroxidase-like CQDs, photocurrent density of CQDs/TiO2 is remarkably enhanced by a 6.4 factor when compared with that of as-prepared TiO2.
Project description:The realisation of photonic devices for different energy ranges demands materials with different bandgaps, sometimes even within the same device. The optimal solution in terms of integration, device performance and device economics would be a simple material system with widely tunable bandgap and compatible with the mainstream silicon technology. Here, we show that gallium arsenide nanowires grown epitaxially on silicon substrates exhibit a sizeable reduction of their bandgap by up to 40% when overgrown with lattice-mismatched indium gallium arsenide or indium aluminium arsenide shells. Specifically, we demonstrate that the gallium arsenide core sustains unusually large tensile strain with hydrostatic character and its magnitude can be engineered via the composition and the thickness of the shell. The resulted bandgap reduction renders gallium arsenide nanowires suitable for photonic devices across the near-infrared range, including telecom photonics at 1.3 and potentially 1.55 μm, with the additional possibility of monolithic integration in silicon-CMOS chips.
Project description:Transistor concepts based on semiconductor nanowires promise high performance, lower energy consumption and better integrability in various platforms in nanoscale dimensions. Concerning the intrinsic transport properties of electrons in nanowires, relatively high mobility values that approach those in bulk crystals have been obtained only in core/shell heterostructures, where electrons are spatially confined inside the core. Here, it is demonstrated that the strain in lattice-mismatched core/shell nanowires can affect the effective mass of electrons in a way that boosts their mobility to distinct levels. Specifically, electrons inside the hydrostatically tensile-strained gallium arsenide core of nanowires with a thick indium aluminium arsenide shell exhibit mobility values 30-50 % higher than in equivalent unstrained nanowires or bulk crystals, as measured at room temperature. With such an enhancement of electron mobility, strained gallium arsenide nanowires emerge as a unique means for the advancement of transistor technology.
Project description:III-V Nanowires (NWs) grown with metal-organic chemical vapor deposition commonly show a polytypic crystal structure, allowing growth of structures not found in the bulk counterpart. In this paper we studied the radial overgrowth of pure wurtzite (WZ) GaAs nanowires and characterized the samples with high resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) to reveal the crystal structure of the grown material. In particular, we investigated what happens when adjacent WZ NWs radially merge with each other by analyzing the evolution of XRD peaks for different amounts of radial overgrowth and merging. By preparing cross-sectional lamella samples we also analyzed the local crystal structure of partly merged NWs by transmission electron microscopy. Once individual NWs start to merge, the crystal structure of the merged segments is transformed progressively from initial pure WZ to a mixed WZ/ZB structure. The merging process is then modeled using a simple combinatorial approach, which predicts that merging of two or more WZ NWs will result in a mixed crystal structure containing WZ, ZB, and 4H. The existence large and relaxed segments of 4H structure within the merged NWs was confirmed by XRD, allowing us to accurately determine the lattice parameters of GaAs 4H. We compare the measured WZ and 4H unit cells with an ideal tetrahedron and find that both the polytypes are elongated in the c-axis and compressed in the a-axis compared to the geometrically converted cubic ZB unit cell.
Project description:Mg doping of GaAs nanowires has been established as a viable alternative to Be doping in order to achieve p-type electrical conductivity. Although reports on the optical properties are available, few reports exist about the physical properties of intermediate-to-high Mg doping in GaAs nanowires grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on GaAs(111)B and Si(111) substrates. In this work, we address this topic and present further understanding on the fundamental aspects. As the Mg doping was increased, structural and optical investigations revealed: i) a lower influence of the polytypic nature of the GaAs nanowires on their electronic structure; ii) a considerable reduction of the density of vertical nanowires, which is almost null for growth on Si(111); iii) the occurrence of a higher WZ phase fraction, in particular for growth on Si(111); iv) an increase of the activation energy to release the less bound carrier in the radiative state from nanowires grown on GaAs(111)B; and v) a higher influence of defects on the activation of nonradiative de-excitation channels in the case of nanowires only grown on Si(111). Back-gate field effect transistors were fabricated with individual nanowires and the p-type electrical conductivity was measured with free hole concentration ranging from 2.7 × 1016 cm-3 to 1.4 × 1017 cm-3. The estimated electrical mobility was in the range ?0.3-39 cm2/Vs and the dominant scattering mechanism is ascribed to the WZ/ZB interfaces. Electrical and optical measurements showed a lower influence of the polytypic structure of the nanowires on their electronic structure. The involvement of Mg in one of the radiative transitions observed for growth on the Si(111) substrate is suggested.
Project description:Controlled formation of non-equilibrium crystal structures is one of the most important challenges in crystal growth. Catalytically grown nanowires are ideal systems for studying the fundamental physics of phase selection, and could lead to new electronic applications based on the engineering of crystal phases. Here we image gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowires during growth as they switch between phases as a result of varying growth conditions. We find clear differences between the growth dynamics of the phases, including differences in interface morphology, step flow and catalyst geometry. We explain these differences, and the phase selection, using a model that relates the catalyst volume, the contact angle at the trijunction (the point at which solid, liquid and vapour meet) and the nucleation site of each new layer of GaAs. This model allows us to predict the conditions under which each phase should be observed, and use these predictions to design GaAs heterostructures. These results could apply to phase selection in other nanowire systems.