No Arabic abstract
A procedure to achieve the density-controlled growth of gold-catalyzed InP nanowires (NWs) on (111) silicon substrates using the vapor-liquid-solid method by molecular beam epitaxy is reported. We develop an effective and mask-free method based on controlling the number and the size of the Au-In catalyst droplets in addition to the conditions for the NW nucleation. We show that the NW density can be tuned with values in the range of 18 {mu}m-2 to < 0.1 {mu}m-2 by the suitable choice of the In/Au catalyst beam equivalent pressure (BEP) ratio, by the phosphorous BEP and the growth temperature. The same degree of control is transferred to InAs/InP quantum dot-nanowires, taking advantage of the ultra-low density to study by micro-photoluminescence the optical properties of a single quantum dot-nanowires emitting in the telecom band monolithically grown on silicon. Optical spectroscopy at cryogenic temperature successfully confirmed the relevance of our method to excite single InAs quantum dots on the as-grown sample, which opens the path for large-scale applications based on single quantum dot-nanowire devices integrated on silicon.
GaAs nanowires and GaAs/Fe3Si core/shell nanowire structures were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on oxidized Si(111) substrates and characterized by transmission electron microscopy. The surfaces of the original GaAs NWs are completely covered by magnetic Fe3Si exhibiting nanofacets and an enhanced surface roughness compared to the bare GaAs NWs. Shell growth at a substrate temperature of T{S} = 200 {deg}C leads to regular nanofacetted Fe3Si shells. These facets, which lead to thickness inhomogeneities of the shells, consist mainly of well pronounced Fe3Si(111) planes. The crystallographic orientation of core and shell coincide, i.e. they are pseudomorphic. The nanofacetted Fe3Si shells found in the present work are probably the result of the Vollmer-Weber island growth mode of Fe3Si on the {110} side facets of the GaAs NWs.
Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have attracted great attention due to their physical and chemical properties that make them promising in electronics and optoelectronics. Because of the difficulties in controlling concentrations of solid precursors and spatially non-uniform growth dynamics, it is challenging to grow wafer-scale 2D TMDCs with good uniformity and reproducibility so far, which significantly hinders their practical use. Here we report a vertical chemical vapor deposition (VCVD) design to grow monolayer TMDCs with a uniform density and high quality over the whole wafer, and with excellent reproducibility. The use of such VCVD design can easily control the three key growth parameters of precursor concentration, gas flow and temperature, which cannot be done in currently widely-used horizontal CVD system. Statistical results show that VCVD-grown monolayer TMDCs including MoS2 and WS2 are of high uniformity and quality on substrates over centimeter size. We also fabricated multiple van der Waals heterostructures by the one-step transfer of VCVD-grown TMDC samples, owning to its good uniformity. This work opens a way to grow 2D materials with high uniformity and reproducibility on the wafer scale, which can be used for the scalable fabrication of 2D materials and their heterostructures.
We examine the structure and the evolution of Ge islands epitaxially grown on vicinal Si(111) surfaces by scanning tunneling microscopy. Contrary to what is observed on the singular surface, three-dimensional Ge nanoislands form directly through the elastic relaxation of step-edge protrusions during the unstable step-flow growth. As the substrate misorientation is increased, the islands undergo a shape transformation which is driven by surface energy minimization and controlled by the miscut angle. Using finite element simulations, we show that the dynamics of islanding observed in the experiment results from the anisotropy of the strain relaxation.
While reversibility is a fundamental concept in thermodynamics, most reactions are not readily reversible, especially in solid state physics. For example, thermal diffusion is a widely known concept, used among others to inject dopant atoms into the substitutional positions in the matrix and improve the device properties. Typically, such a diffusion process will create a concentration gradient extending over increasingly large regions, without possibility to reverse this effect. On the other hand, while the bottom up growth of semiconducting nanowires is interesting, it can still be difficult to fabricate axial heterostructures with high control. In this paper, we report a reversible thermal diffusion process occurring in the solid-state exchange reaction between an Al metal pad and a Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$ alloy nanowire observed by in-situ transmission electron microscopy. The thermally assisted reaction results in the creation of a Si-rich region sandwiched between the reacted Al and unreacted SixGe1-x part, forming an axial Al/Si/Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$ heterostructure. Upon heating or (slow) cooling, the Al metal can repeatably move in and out of the Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$ alloy nanowire while maintaining the rod-like geometry and crystallinity, allowing to fabricate and contact nanowire heterostructures in a reversible way in a single process step, compatible with current Si based technology. This interesting system is promising for various applications, such as phase change memories in an all crystalline system with integrated contacts, as well as Si/Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$/Si heterostructures for near-infrared sensing applications.
In a combined experimental and theoretical study, we investigate the influence of the material source arrangement in a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system on the growth of nanowire (NW) core-shell structures. In particular, we study the shell growth of GaN around GaN template NWs under the boundary condition that Ga and N do not impinge on a given sidewall facet at the same time. Our experiments with different V/III ratios and substrate temperatures show that obtaining shells with homogeneous thickness along the whole NW length is not straightforward. Analyzing in detail the shell morphology with and without substrate rotation, we find that the different azimuthal angles of the sources have a major impact on the Ga adatom kinetics and the final shell morphology. On the basis of these experimental results, we develop a diffusion model which takes into account different NW facets and the substrate. The model allows to describe well the experimental shell profiles and predicts that homogeneous shell growth can be achieved if the Ga and N source are arranged next to each other or for very high rotation speeds. Moreover, the modeling reveals that the growth on a given side facet can be categorized within one rotation in four different phases: the Ga wetting phase, the metal-rich growth phase, the N-rich growth phase, and the dissociation phase. The striking difference to growth processes on planar samples is that, in our case, diffusion takes place between different regions, i.e. the sidewall vs. the top facet and substrate, out of which on one N impinges not continuously, resulting in complex gradients in chemical potential that are modulated in time by substrate rotation. The comprehensiveness of our model provides a deep understanding of diffusion processes and the resulting adatom concentration, and could be applied to other 3D structures and material systems