Doubling the mobility of InAs/InGaAs selective area grown nanowires

Selective area growth (SAG) of nanowires and networks promise a route toward scalable electronics, photonics, and quantum devices based on III-V semiconductor materials. The potential of high-mobility SAG nanowires however is not yet fully realised, since interfacial roughness, misfit dislocations at the nanowire/substrate interface and nonuniform composition due to material intermixing all scatter electrons. Here, we explore SAG of highly lattice-mismatched InAs nanowires on insulating GaAs(001) substrates and address these key challenges. Atomically smooth nanowire/substrate interfaces are achieved with the use of atomic hydrogen (a-H) as an alternative to conventional thermal annealing for the native oxide removal. The problem of high lattice mismatch is addressed through an InxGa1-xAs buffer layer introduced between the InAs transport channel and the GaAs substrate. The Ga-In material intermixing observed in both the buffer layer and the channel is inhibited via careful tuning of the growth temperature. Performing scanning transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction analysis along with low-temperature transport measurements we show that optimized In-rich buffer layers promote high-quality InAs transport channels with the field-effect electron mobility over 10 000 cm2 V-1 s-1. This is twice as high as for nonoptimized samples and among the highest reported for InAs selective area grown nanostructures.The project was supported by Microsoft Quantum, the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant No. 716655 (HEMs-DAM), and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant No. 722176. The authors acknowledge Dr. Keita Ohtani for technical support and fruitful discussions. D.V.B. is grateful to Dr. Juan-Carlos Estrada Saldaña for careful reading of the manuscript. The authors thank Francesco Montalenti, Marco Albani and Leo Miglio for scientific discussions. ICN2 acknowledges funding from Generalitat de Catalunya 2017 SGR 327. ICN2 is supported by the Severo Ochoa program from Spanish MINECO (Grant No. SEV-2017-0706) and is funded by the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. Part of the present work has been performed in the framework of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Materials Science Ph.D. program. The HAADF-STEM microscopy was conducted in the Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas at Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragon-Universidad de Zaragoza. M.C.S. has received funding from the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 754510 (PROBIST). The funding agency is Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the project reference is “Research Platform on Quantum Technologies PTI-001”

Morphology and composition of oxidized InAs nanowires studied by combined Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy

importance for semiconductor nanowires because of the high surface-to-volume ratio and only little is known about the consequences of oxidation for these systems. Here, we study the properties of indium arsenide nanowires which were locally oxidized using a focused laser beam. Polarization dependent micro-Raman measurements confirmed the presence of crystalline arsenic, and transmission electron microscopy diffraction showed the presence of indium oxide. The surface dependence of the oxidation was investigated in branched nanowires grown along the [0001] and [01 (1) over bar0] wurtzite crystal directions exhibiting different surface facets. The oxidation did not occur at the [ 011 (1) over bar 0] direction. The origin of this selectivity is discussed in terms transition state kinetics of the free surfaces of the different crystal families of the facets and numerical simulations of the laser induced heating

Micro-Raman spectroscopy for the detection of stacking fault density in InAs and GaAs nanowires

We investigate the relation between crystal stacking faults in individual wurtzite InAs and GaAs nanowires and the intensity of the forbidden longitudinal optical (LO) phonon mode in the Raman spectra. Micro-Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy are combined on the same individual nanowires to evaluate the LO mode intensity as a function of the stacking fault density. A clear increase in the LO mode intensity was observed when the stacking fault density was increased. Our results confirm the utility of Raman spectroscopy as a powerful tool for detecting crystal defects in nanowires

Tuning the response of non-allowed Raman modes in GaAs nanowires

We report on the use of photonic resonances in Raman spectroscopy on single nanowires for the enhancement of forbidden modes and the study of the interaction of phonons with free-carriers. This is achieved by suspending nanowire over a trench and detecting Raman scattered light with light polarized along the radial direction. Thanks to the photonic nature of the light-nanowire interaction, light polarization inside the nanowire is modified. This results in the excitation of LO modes, forbidden on {1 1 0} surfaces. We apply this new configuration to the measurement of carrier concentration on doped GaAs nanowires. These results open new perspectives for the study of the interaction of free-carriers or plasmons with optical phonons in nanostructures

Semiconductor-Ferromagnetic Insulator-Superconductor Nanowires:Stray Field and Exchange Field

Nanowires can serve as flexible substrates for hybrid epitaxial growth on selected facets, allowing for design of heterostructures with complex material combinations and geometries. In this work we report on hybrid epitaxy of semiconductor - ferromagnetic insulator - superconductor (InAs/EuS/Al) nanowire heterostructures. We study the crystal growth and complex epitaxial matching of wurtzite InAs / rock-salt EuS interfaces as well as rock-salt EuS / face-centered cubic Al interfaces. Because of the magnetic anisotropy originating from the nanowire shape, the magnetic structure of the EuS phase are easily tuned into single magnetic domains. This effect efficiently ejects the stray field lines along the nanowires. With tunnel spectroscopy measurements of the density of states, we show the material has a hard induced superconducting gap, and magnetic hysteretic evolution which indicates that the magnetic exchange fields are not negligible. These hybrid nanowires fulfil key material requirements for serving as a platform for spin-based quantum applications, such as scalable topological quantum computing.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure