Protective capping and surface passivation of III-V nanowires by atomic layer deposition

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2016-01-01

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en

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7

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AIP Advances, Volume 6, issue 1, pp. 1-7

Abstract

Low temperature (∼200 °C) grown atomic layer deposition (ALD) films of AlN, TiN, Al2O3, GaN, and TiO2 were tested for protective capping and surface passivation of bottom-up grown III-V (GaAs and InP) nanowires (NWs), and top-down fabricated InP nanopillars. For as-grown GaAs NWs, only the AlN material passivated the GaAs surface as measured by photoluminescence (PL) at low temperatures (15K), and the best passivation was achieved with a few monolayer thick (2Å) film. For InP NWs, the best passivation (∼2x enhancement in room-temperature PL) was achieved with a capping of 2nm thick Al2O3. All other ALD capping layers resulted in a de-passivation effect and possible damage to the InP surface. Top-down fabricated InP nanopillars show similar passivation effects as InP NWs. In particular, capping with a 2 nm thick Al2O3 layer increased the carrier decay time from 251 ps (as-etched nanopillars) to about 525 ps. Tests after six months ageing reveal that the capped nanostructures retain their optical properties. Overall, capping of GaAs and InP NWs with high-k dielectrics AlN and Al2O3 provides moderate surface passivation as well as long term protection from oxidation and environmental attack.

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Dhaka, V, Perros, A, Naureen, S, Shahid, N, Jiang, H, Kakko, J-P, Haggren, T, Kauppinen, E, Srinivasan, A & Lipsanen, H 2016, 'Protective capping and surface passivation of III-V nanowires by atomic layer deposition', AIP Advances, vol. 6, no. 1, 015016, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4941063