High density GaAs nanowire arrays through substrate processing engineering

Abstract

GaAs nanowires (NWs) vertically aligned were successfully fabricated through substrate processing engineering. High-density vertical GaAs NWs are grown on n-type Si (111) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. Systematic experiments indicate that substrate pretreatment is crucial to vertical epitaxial growth of one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials. The substrates etched using diluted buffered oxide etch (BOE) were explored to improve the NW density and vertical. We also find that the substrate processing engineering strongly affect the morphology of GaAs NWs. Finally, we demonstrate fabrication of GaAs NW arrays on Si surface by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). This single-step process indeed offers a simple and cost-effective way to obtain a large area of GaAs NW arrays without using e-beam lithography (EBL) and/or nanoimprint lithography (NIL) processes. This work provided a new approach for hight density NW arrays.