Abstract
Catalyst-free InP nanowires were grown on Si (100) substrates by low-pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The different stages of nanowire growth were investigated. The scanning electron microscopy images showed that the density of the nanowires increased as the growth continued. Catalyzing indium droplets could still be fabricated in the nanowire growing process. X-ray diffraction showed that the nanowires grown at different stages were single crystalline with <111 > growth direction. The photoluminescence studies carried out at room temperature on InP nanowires reveal that the blueshift of photoluminescence decreased as the growing time accumulates, which is related to the increase in the diameter, rather than the length. Raman spectra for nanowires at different growing stages show that the quality of the nanowire changes. The growth of InP nanowires at different growing stages is demonstrated as a dynamic process.
Highlights
Semiconductor nanowires of different materials have received increasing attention in recent years for their nanodevice application as one-dimensional structures and building blocks [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We study the entire forest of InP nanowires at different growing stages during the metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth process for a single set of growth conditions
This phenomenon will not appear in the traditional Aucatalyzed nanowire MOCVD growth, for the density of the gold droplets is certain as soon as they were fabricated in the pretreatment
Summary
Semiconductor nanowires of different materials have received increasing attention in recent years for their nanodevice application as one-dimensional structures and building blocks [1,2,3,4,5,6]. III-V nanowires grown on Si substrate have superior electronic properties of directbandgap III-V materials combined with the low cost and well-known properties of silicon. One way of fabricating III-V nanowires is by vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) method [7] using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) [8]. In the typical fabrication of III-V semiconductor nanowires by the VLS method, gold nanoparticle has been used as catalyst [9]. Gold nanoparticle-mediated growth produces unwanted effects in nanowires, such as introduction of deep levels [10] and gold migration [11] on the semiconductor surface. In order to avoid these impacts, catalyst-free growth is demonstrated by using in situ deposited indium droplets as seeds for nanowire growth [12]
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