Improvement of Terahertz Wave Radiation for InAs Nanowires by Simple Dipping into Tap Water

Abstract

We report improvement of terahertz (THz) wave radiation for Si-based catalyst-free InAs nanowires (NWs) by simple dipping into tap water (DTW). In addition, the possibility of using InAs NWs as a cost-effective method for biomedical applications is discussed by comparison to bulk InAs. The peak-to-peak current signals (PPCSs) of InAs NWs measured from THz time-domain spectroscopy increased with increasing NW height. For example, the PPCS of 10 μm-long InAs NWs was 2.86 times stronger than that of 2.1 μm-long NWs. The THz spectra of the InAs NWs obtained by applying a fast Fourier transformation to the current signals showed a main frequency of 0.5 THz, which can be applied to a variety of medical imaging systems. After the DTW process, structural variation was not observed for 2.1 μm-long InAs NWs. However, the top region of several InAs NWs with heights of 4.6 and 5.8 μm merged into a conical structure. InAs NWs with a height of 10 μm resulted in a bundle feature forming above the conical shape, where the length of bundle region was 4 μm. After the DTW process, the PPCS for 10 μm-long InAs NWs increased by 15 percent compared to that of the as-grown case.