Development and operation of research-scale III-V nanowire growth reactors

TL;DR

This paper presents the development of cost-effective, research-scale III-V nanowire growth reactors using MOVPE, demonstrating improved crystal quality and reproducibility with a custom cold-wall system for InAs nanowires.

Contribution

It introduces novel, affordable MOVPE reactors for nanowire growth, enhancing quality and reproducibility compared to commercial systems.

Findings

Cold-wall reactor produces nanowires with low defect density.

Nanowires exhibit high field-effect mobilities (~16,000 cm²/V·s).

Reactor design improves growth consistency.

Abstract

III-V nanowires are useful platforms for studying the electronic and mechanical properties of materials at the nanometer scale. However, the costs associated with commercial nanowire growth reactors are prohibitive for most research groups. We developed hot-wall and cold-wall metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) reactors for the growth of InAs nanowires, which both use the same gas handling system. The hot-wall reactor is based on an inexpensive quartz tube furnace and yields InAs nanowires for a narrow range of operating conditions. Improvement of crystal quality and an increase in growth run to growth run reproducibility are obtained using a homebuilt UHV cold-wall reactor with a base pressure of 2 X 10$^{-9}$ Torr. A load-lock on the UHV reactor prevents the growth chamber from being exposed to atmospheric conditions during sample transfers. Nanowires grown in the cold-wall system have a low defect density, as determined using transmission electron microscopy, and exhibit field effect gating with mobilities approaching 16,000 cm$^2$(V.s).