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III-V Semiconductor Vertical and Tilted Nanowires on Silicon Using Chemical Beam Epitaxy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Gokul Radhakrishnan ,
Alex Freundlich ,
Joe Charlson  and
Bodo Fuhrmann
Gokul Radhakrishnan
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Houston, ECE, 3942 W. Alabama St. #8, Houston, TX, 77027, United States, 713-743-3621
Alex Freundlich
Affiliation:
[email protected], Center for Advanced materials, Houston, TX, 77204-5004, United States
Joe Charlson
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Houston, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Houston, TX, 77204-5004, United States
Bodo Fuhrmann
Affiliation:
[email protected], Martin Luther University of Halle, Interdisciplinary Center of Materials Science, Halle, D-06120, Germany
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Abstract

Nowadays nanostructures play a vital part in the rapidly expanding areas of photovoltaics. The ability of nanowires to transfer photo-generated carriers rapidly across a solar cell has lead our interest in growth of nanowires . Currently Vapor Liquid Solid (VLS) epitaxy is the most common method used to grow epitaxial vertical nanowires. A metal particle such as gold is used to form a liquid alloy eutectic with the material of a substrate or with material supplied in the vapor phase. In growing semiconductor wires using metal droplets, it has been shown that the wires grow in the (111) direction and have clean facets . Furthermore these wires generally present an undesirable larger pyramidal base at the bottom and there is also evidence of surface migration of the metal catalyst. Thus far, most of the effort in the development of vertical III-V semiconductor nanowires has been limited to homo-polar combinations (e.g. InAs on InP). The ability to fabricate III-V nanowires on silicon could however pave the way toward the monolithic integration of III-V nanostructured solar cells with Si. Here we demonstrate the growth of GaAs and InP nanowires on silicon (111) using gold as the metal seed particle. An ordered array of gold nano dots is integrated on the surface of a silicon substrate using self-assembled polystyrene nanospheres as the Au evaporation template. The size of the gold dots range from 40 nm to 150 nm and the pitch is about 500 nm. The growth of the wires is done by chemical beam epitaxy under a vapour phase environment. Scanning electron microscopy and photoluminescence are used to characterize these nanowires. Wire exhibit high crystallinity and there is an absence of the pyramidal base at the bottom of the nanowire using this technique. Furthermore the study also shows evidence of pregrowth motion of some of the gold particles causing coalescence of nanowires and leading to the development of nanopods and tilted (off-normal) nanowires. Finally in the light of their optical properties the relevance of these wires to photovoltaic applications is discussed.

Keywords

self-assemblyIII-Vnucleation & growth
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1031: Symposium H – Nanostructured Solar Cells , 2007 , 1031-H13-01
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2008

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