Light-emitting InAs nanowires grown by MOVPE directly on flexible plastic substrates

Abstract

We explore for the first time the direct growth of high quality InAs nanowires (NWs) on flexible plastic substrates by MOVPE. We have recently reported on self-catalyzed growth of InAs NWs using a new low-temperature growth regime, where NWs were obtained at temperatures as low as 280°C. We showed that low-temperature growth is beneficial for a variety process flows and growth substrates where excessive heat is detrimental, particularly for plastic substrates. In this work, we synthesize InAs nanowires in-situ on flexible polyimide substrates without any need for transfer techniques. Presently semiconductor nanowires are routinely grown on high-priced crystalline substrates as it is extremely challenging to grow directly on plastics and flexible substrates due to high temperature requirements and substrate preparation. At the same time plastic substrates can offer many advantages such as extremely low price, light weight, mechanical flexibility, shock and thermal resistance and biocompatibility. We show that the fabricated NWs are optically and electrically active with strong light emission in the infrared range. Overall, we demonstrate that light-emitting InAs nanowires can be synthesized directly on flexible plastic substrates inside a MOVPE reactor, and we believe that our results will further advance the development of the nanowires-based flexible electronic devices.